Usually escaping from Mokpo by plane involves an escape by bus to Incheon Airport. But Mokpo is large enough to warrant its own airport, aptly named Mokpo Airport (목포 공항 aka Mokpo Kong Hang). For the curious, Korea is small enough that airports are easily recognised by their name or host city so most Koreans (including taxi drivers) don't bother with 국제 (aka GukChay) and 국내 (aka GukNeah), the respective international and domestic prefixes for 공항 (aka Kong Hang), the Korean word for airport. Mokpo's airport is a domestic one but unfortunately closed to the public.
Mokpo airport is located 22km far from Mokpo City Hall to the southeast. It was constructed in 1969 and opened Mokpo~Seoul line by korean Air on July 1992 and Asiana Airlines on December 1992. Korean Air placed Mokpo~Jeju line into service in 1993, and Mokpo~Busan line on October 1994. But it was stopped on October 15, 2001. Since April 2003, there has been only 2 flights in Mokpo~Seoul line of Asiana Airlines. Mokpo Airport has been operated in affection of local residents for the time being, but it would be faded away to history when Muan International Airport, which is being constructed as alternative airport considering of the increasing demands, starts the operation.
Yes, the closest way to escape by plane is now through Muan Airport (무안공항 aka Muan Kong Hang) that just openedNovember 8th of 2007. The airport itself is scheduled to be the 3rd largest in Korea once it starts to operate at full capacity:
The airport was apparently under construction for 8 years, and as I mentioned in an earlier post there are articles that say the airport was supposed to open as early as 2004 (I saw one that said 2003, but I can't find it now). So the current delays are face-slappingly mind-boggling. According to a Korea Times article from November 2, the highway between Gwangju and Muan isn't scheduled to open until June, 2008, and that the KTX may eventually pass through Muan. I don't understand why the transportation issue wasn't the first hammered out, instead of being among the last. All of the issues mentioned in the initial KT article I linked are pretty serious deficiencies, and I guess by "open" it is meant that airplanes are physically able to take off and land.
Brian may sound a bit harsh, but Muan is on par with South Korea's reputation for mismanaged airport projects:
The "zany airport" in the report is Uljin Airport in North Gyeongsang Province, which has not yet opened. Uljin Airport was originally scheduled to open in 2003 but operations have been delayed since no airlines want to fly there, as AFP correctly reported. The airlines know that very few passengers would want to fly there.
Uljin Airport isn't the only local airport in Korea that can't attract airlines. Daegu Airport has had no flights since November when airlines decided not to fly there. Yangyang Airport in Gangwon Province handled an average of just 66 passengers per day in July, the peak summer vacation season. That's fewer than the number of people employed to run the place -- 82. Muan International Airport in South Jeolla Province, which opened in November, averages just one domestic and one international flight per day.
As for the Mokpo airport some Mokponians around here are telling me that it has already faded away to history and that it is (or will be, depending on the eventuality of Muan) a private airport used by the military.
I can't read this article from the Seattle Times on my school computer. I don't know why but it is blocked by something call Cleanpass that (after some researching) is operated by ITOP. Now, it's not the first time that I've worked at a place that has had some Internet restrictions, but it is the first place where I can't understand the logic.
There's already tons of information on the Internet for bypassing web filters, but the key words that you want to learn are Anonymous Proxies. Anonymous proxies are computer servers on the Internets that you can hide behind. And by hide behind I mean that instead of your computer directly asking for information from an Internet server, your computer now asks the proxy to ask for you. By doing this you can also ask the proxy to muck about with whatever information is involved in the transaction but for accessing restricted websites we just want the the proxy to re-write the URL so that the filter doesn't match it on its offensive site list. Other stuff, like cookie management, advertisement blocking, etc. are aspects for the truly paranoid.
Christmas in Korea seems like another required post for ex-pat bloggers. But the important thing to note that Christmas in Korea is same same, but different. For example,
Boxing day (British or American) is a foreign concept.
The Internet (God bless it) provides more information:
In countries where Christianity is the main religion, people celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ by going to church, recreating Nativity scenes and spending time with their families. In Korea, Christmas is a little bit different. Since a large part of the Korean population has no religious affiliation (46 percent) or follows the Buddhist tradition (26 percent), Christmas in Korea is more secular. Few people regard it as a religious celebration and rather enjoy it as a day to celebrate the end of the year. Although during Christmas season you will find many Christmas trees and images of Santa Claus on the streets, you will not see many Nativity scenes, which are very common in Christian countries.
Unlike Western countries where Christmas is a family holiday, in Korea it is a day to celebrate with your girlfriend or boyfriend, as a couple. Therefore, while people in other countries grow stressed during Christmas season worrying about facing family members, Koreans on the other hand grow stressed looking for a date for Christmas Eve. Those who have a special person with whom to spend Christmas often enjoy romantic dinners and go to places in downtown Seoul like Gwanghwamun and Myeongdong, where they can enjoy the beautiful scenery of Christmas lights and decorations.
Those who fail to get a date for Christmas, however, spend it with their friends. Fortunately, during the last days of December there are many year-end parties, or mangnyeonhoe, where Koreans gather together to celebrate the end of the year. Mangnyeonhoe are usually held between old classmates, coworkers and other social groups. These parties are characterized by lots of eating and drinking, and an overall atmosphere of unrestrained celebration.
Meanwhile, Christmas shopping in Korea is not as frantic as in other Western countries. Although sales do increase at the end of the year, shopping for gifts is not a big problem since it is not customary to exchange presents with family members or friends for Christmas. Usually most Koreans just buy presents for their girlfriends or boyfriends, as it is not tradition to give presents to all your friends and family members.
South Korea is holding its presidential election today. Wikipedia, the web, and everybody with a blog in Korea has tons of information about it so here's my offer. It's a holiday:
Korea’s 17th Presidential Election Day is nearing. Held once every five years, the occasion marks a day off on December 19, 2007 as elections take place. However, shopping centers, department stores, shops, restaurants, and tourists locations will still be open during regular hours of operation. All banks, government offices, private businesses, and schools will remain closed.
Brian, over at Brian in Jeollanam-do, has a found a fun way to stalk people. Using Naver People search you can search for people with the following criteria:
Name (이름)
School (출신학교)
Birthplace (출생지)
Job (직업)
Organization (소속기관)
The school option is an interesting one but I don't quite understand the results. The famous alumni at 전남제일고등학교 includes only 5 people while the list of famous alumni at 전라남도목포상업고등학교 omits its most honored son, Kim Dae Jung, class of 1943.
A personal note: I have contradicted a virus. Or maybe a bacterial infection. Or maybe just a normal killer cold transmitted to me by one of my students. In either case something is making me fells sick enough to not go to school, skip out on the eco-gooken oil clean up this weekend, and (the scariest part) to go to the doctor.
Now, it's not that I'm scared of going to the doctor, I'm just not that confident with the language to ensure that I get proper medical attention. I mean let's transfer the hilarity that one has with trying to get a hair cut into trying to get medical care. In which situation can you walk away from "I didn't want that cut off" and well, actually walk away?
Galbijim has a nice post about what to do when sick and even a page for Hospitals with English speaking staff. Lucky enough Mokpo has at least one English speaking doctor: 김건형 (aka Kim Kan Hyan) at the 21세기하나내과 (aka 21 Century Hana Medical Clinic). He's not completely fluent but we managed to talk about me and my symptoms without the need of an interpreter, something that generates so much material for sitcoms:
No one here could speak much English (the doctor knew some words), so the process of getting me prepped for deeper observation was a challenge. They had to get at my hip, so I was told to undo my pants. Makes sense, but in my mind, that meant take them right off. So that's what I did, right there in front of the nurse, who gave a good loud scream and ran into the back room. I had underwear on, but it didn't seem to be enough to calm her down, so I wrapped a towel around myself, shouted some "I'm sorry"s over the curtain, and got back down on the table.
Even though my students tell me it is a hospital, the part where I went to, on the second floor, was really a walk-in clinic. I managed to get Kim Kan Hyan by asking "English Doctor?" to the receptionist and the subsequent service was relatively quick. I received the required shot inthe bum, eye drops, and an individually wrapped cocktail of pills from the pharmacy on the first level. I have five pills in my cocktail to be taken three time a day and that looks to be on par with the national average:
The average number of pills prescribed to those with colds in Korea was 4.73, compared to 1.61 for the US, 2.58 for the UK, and 2.2 for Japan. People under 18 in Korea were given an average of 4.56 pills per prescription, compared to 1.64 for the US, 1.77 in Switzerland, and 1.85 in Germany.
Jeollanam-Do Mokpo Commercial School or Mokpo School of Commerce (전라남도 목포 상업 고등학교) is the former name of JeonnamJeil High School but despite the name change it is still active, at least on the Internet, and through events like an alumni concert that included the current schoolband, guest alumni performers, and other, uniquely highschool things.
The Korean Wave is a buzz word describing the export of Korean culture; whenever another country does something connected to Korea, it's labeled by Korean as riding/catching/whatever the Korean Wave. Of course taking that logic further means that there's been a British Wave, an American Wave, and to an extent, a Canadian Wave.
While the popularity of the Made in Korea label grew quite quickly, it has yet to make it's way out of Asia. One explanation is that Korea was the first to glam-up existing Asian culture:
Experts offer several reasons for the Korea Wave phenomenon. Among them are the facts that most Asian countries share Confucian culture, that Korean culture professes nonviolence, and that the quality of Korean culture and communications have increased sharply in the past few years. In other words, fans embrace Korean cultural products because they convey similar Asian cultural sentiments in sophisticated packages.
Of course one unique aspect of the Korean Wave is how tightly integrated it is to Koreanmonocultural identity. For example, if you think that Nascar sucks, it doesn't mean that you hate the USA. Well maybe...
But seriously, a product of monoculture societies like Korea is that any criticism towards the culture wave is immediately interpreted against criticism against the country:
Thus the actor ZhangGuolin has said China is becoming “a giant in importing foreign culture” and watching Korean TV dramas was tantamount to “selling out the nation.” The film magazine Mingxing insisted in December that the Korean government tries to hinder not only agricultural and fishery imports from China but also cultural products, according to KITA’s Beijing office. China’s State Administration for Radio Film and Television (SARFT) also said last December that China had been too generous with the import of Korean TV dramas and called for a stricter screening process. It said China could limit airtime for Korean dramas to 50 percent
Then there's the Japanese criticism that seems to welcome and reject the products of the Korean wave based on a cultural supersaturation.
“I really want to say this,” the director said, clearly exasperated. “To me, Japanese women who flock to see Yonsama (Korean actor Bae Yong-joon) are repulsive. When I see something so repulsive, whoever they are carrying on about, it makes me feel profoundly sick.”
The director was accompanied by his wife who, as it happens, is an admired performer in Japan. Maho Toyota, too, would like a little less of the Korean fare. “As an actress, I feel like the presence of Korean actors on Japanese television is excessive,” she said. “It would be good if all stars could perform freely on the Asian scene regardless of their nationalities. It’s a pity that the current tide is leaning too much toward one particular phenomenon.”
She said she was concerned how long it will last. “I hope this leads to the development of a unified scene where Asian people can exchange their cultures and share them, I hope that Koreans will feel the same way.”
The words repulsive and sick are strong words here, but given this example I find myself somewhat sympathetic.
But of course nothing is simple with Korea and Japan. Kenkanryu (aka Hating the Korean Wave) is the controversial Japanese criticism in comic book form and 혐일류 (aka Hyeomillyu or Hate Japan Wave) is the respective Korean response. Both Gusts of Popular Feeling (who breaks out Scott McCloud'sUnderstanding Comics) and Occidentalism do a good job analyzing the comics and I'll have to take their word for it until I get myself an English translation.
HONG KONG ― A high-ranking Dutch diplomat and his wife, who adopted a 4-month-old Korean girl in 2000 when he was posted in Korea, gave up the child last year, officials here said.
Now, officials here are looking for someone to take care of the school-age child.
The girl, Jade, is still a Korean citizen because the adoptive parents, whose names were not released, never applied to give her Dutch citizenship, according to an official at the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department.
She doesn’t speak any Korean. She speaks only English and Cantonese, according to people close to her.
And she doesn’t have Hong Kong residency status, either.
The Hong Kong Social Welfare Department, where the Dutch diplomat left Jade in September last year, has had responsibility for her ever since, the official said.
Jade has been in Hong Kong’s foster care system, according to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.
The paper also reported that the diplomat, who has a senior management role at a European consulate in the city, said “the adoption had gone wrong,” without any further explanation.
“It’s just a very terrible trauma that everyone’s experiencing,” he told the paper. “I don’t have anything to say to the public. It is something we have to live with.”
The diplomat’s wife thought she was infertile when the couple adopted the Korean girl in 2000, the official said. After they moved to Hong Kong, the wife got pregnant. They now have two children of their own.
The story has fueled anger among the Korean immigrant community in Hong Kong, which criticized the diplomat couple for “irre-sponsibly renouncing their custody of a child who’d been with them more than six years after delaying the naturalization process in Netherlands for years.”
A couple of potential families in Hong Kong showed interest in the adoption, but are struggling to complete the adoption process because of the strict legal qualifications here, Koreans familiar with the incident said.
The Korean Consulate in Hong Kong said it is aware of the situation.
“We could send her back to a Korean orphanage, but she’s been away from Korea for so long, and it would be very difficult for her to re-adapt in Korea,” said Jeong Byeong-bae, a consul of the South Korean consulate in Hong Kong. “So it is for the best under the circumstances to find a Korean family in Hong Kong.”
I understand the anger coming from everybody, but since the various takes are giving me flashbacks of another child in limbo I'm more curious about the parent's decision rather than simplynjoining the bandwagon of eople calling for their heads. After some researching on why people return their adoptive chilren I found this story where the adoptive child turned out to be harmful to the younger children:
The agency didn't tell us about his mental health issues, and they knew he had them. It took us 4 years to figure out that he had Reactive Attachment Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Fetal Alcohol Effects, and Mood Disorders. By the time we educated ourselves and recognized what was going on, it was too late. Our son was raging in our home everyday and had tried to kill his little sister twice in front of me. This started many trips to the ER and to psyche hospitals. Two in one month.
I found some other takes on the Dutch story but the additional information is minimal. One give the girl's age as 8, the outpouring of support from the Hong Kong Korean community and even this bit of trivia:
In Korea, parents cannot return adopted children, but no such law exists in Hong Kong.
At first read it seems like a laughable sentences. I mean, it poses the questions: Is this incident so crazy that the Hong Kong courts haven't had any history to create a precedent or did Korea experience a time where Korean children were being returned to the orphanages. The outpouring of support from the Korean community should be a good sign about how Koreans feel about adoption but then I find this in a post by the happy couple in Kimchi and Cornbread:
The wrong is this: single mothers in Korea are forced by societal norms to either give up their baby for adoption or have an abortion (Korea has one of the highest abortions in the world). This equates to 6 children per day being put up for adoption, despite the country's low birth rate (the 4th lowest in the world.)
But Koreans do not and will not (for the most part) adopt other Koreans. Bloodlines are important in Korea. So important that they would never adopt another child not related to their family. Especially if it were a boy, who would one day receive his parents' inheritance.
It doesn't shed light on the discrepency in law, ut it's interesting that the attitude of Korea Koreans kind of contradicts the offers of help from the Hong Kong Koreans. Then again, the cynical side of me see the Hong Kong incident as something more to do with uniting against the white devil motif rather than show of support for a girl who has been tainted in the eyes of Koreans.
In the same Google search I also I find that it is possibly illegal to volunteer at an orphanage thanks to an interpreation highlighted by last year's BabopaloozaIncident. In fact volunteering for anything isn't as easy for a foreigner:
Han Heek-young, who works at the information desk at the Seoul Help Center for Foreigners, had also never heard of non-Koreans getting in trouble for volunteering.
"I’ve never even before thought that it could be illegal," she said.
When she called the Immigration Bureau on Friday, officials would not provide her information if she would not tell the nationality of the inquirer. She said officials said the question was important because foreigners for these purposes are divided into two groups: Chinese and everybody else.
Officials said foreigners were less likely to have problems if their volunteer work was unrelated to their paid work, Han said. For example, English teachers volunteering in kindergartens are likely to be suspected of taking money under the table for English instruction.
When Han spoke to immigration officials on Monday, they told her that foreigners should have no trouble volunteering, as long as no money is exchanged, even to recoup costs.
It's somewhat related (if only by the fact that it matches the key words of 'foreigner adoption korea') but it's good to know for the Mokpo foreigners who do help out at the local orphanages.
Update: The story has evolved the past week; Monsters & Critics has this account from the maid:
The woman, who has requested not to be named, worked for the Dutch vice-consul Raymond Poeteray and his wife Meta in Hong Kong and when the family was based in Jakarta in 2002.
She said she thought it strange that the girl, now eight, was so quiet.
'They did not treat her the same way as the son. There was not the love there,' the maid told The Post.
However, the couple issued a declaration which was published in the Dutch daily newspaper De Telegraaf Thursday that rejected the accusations published in the Hong Kong media.
The Poeterays said their eight-year-old daughter Jade, adopted in 2000 as a four-month-old, was suffering from what they called 'commitment anxiety' and that they were advised by the Chinese Social Services to 'place her in foster care temporarily.'
They wrote that 'contrary to what has been written in the media, we do not want to get rid of our daughter. We never even considered giving her up.'
Unfortunately the previously mentioned collection of South Park Korean translation subtitles stops at season 8. I don't know why but I don't care that much either since pandora.tv and other Korean YouTubes were somehow still showing new translated versions of South Park. So I went looking for more and found SouthParkTV.Net. It seem to outperform SPKor since (given this example) it provides subtitles, the script, and a video link to the video, hosted on a daum cafe blog account.
Teaching Kimchi has another nice table comparing ESL salaries and whatnot from a collection of countries:
Country
Monthly Salary (USD)
Insurance
Flight
Housing
Severance
Dubai
$3,200-5,000
No
Yearly Return Airfare
Free and Furnished
No
Taiwan
$3,000-4,000
Depends on program
No
Free not furnished
No
Korea
$2,000-2,300
Depends on your salary
Roundtrip
Furnished Apt.
One month salary after contract
Japan
$2,000
Depends on program
Roundtrip
Depends on program
Extended holidays
Thailand
$800-1,000
Depends on program
Roundtrip
Depends on program
Depends on school
Russia
$900
No
Roundtrip
Free and furnished
No
China
$400-550
No
Depends on length
Free and furnished
One month salary
Vietnam
$370
Depends
Depends on length
Free local food
No
One thing that is lacking is adjustments for the cost of living. For example, the cost of eating in Dubai is $450 US per month but in Taiwan it's around $140 US (NT$150 x 30 days) and in Korea it's around $270 per month.
Given that we're glorified babysitters each English teacher is going to reach a point in their teaching career where they want to reward (or need to bribe) student participation in class. This method of classroom management is controversial in itself, but a Geek in Korea has noted how this can backfire in a Korean context:
My Canadian coworker has gotten himself in a bit of a pickle. Ever since he returned from Canada, he has been giving out candy to younger students before their classes start to earn their favor. This has, of course, blown up in his face, as the students walk into the room, demand candy, then call him a cheap man if he doesn’t have anything to give them. I get left alone as a surly curmudgeon that hates candy, gum, and all things sweet most of the time. Lucky me.
I enjoy being the surly curmudgeon too, especially when you realise how it could really backfire.
텍사스문 (aka Texas Moon) is a themed bar in Mokpo's downtown. Normally I'd post the Naver Local entry but Naver only recognises the one in Seoul as the 올드뮤직 재즈카페 Texas Moon (aka old jazz music cafe Texas Moon).
There are some photos but I can't tell if it's the Seoul branch, the Mokpo branch or some other city. Regardless it's an officially sanctioned foreigner hangout thanks to the awe and wonder surrounding its famous Magic Sparkle Drink.
By way of The Lost Nomad I came across the annual Foreigner's Forum. It's only a Seoul thing but the article notes many of the problems that fuel the ex-pat blogs. For example:
“I could not withdraw money from my Korean bank account with my ATM card when I was traveling abroad. But I saw my Korean companions withdraw money without any problem,” said Anne LaDouceur, the moderator of the meeting and a member of the city government’s Foreign Investment Advisory Council.
Some in the audience noted that they could not even use their ATM cards in Korea for several months after they opened new bank accounts here. “Nonghyup recently refused to open my account even though I have lived here for four years and have an alien registration number and a passport. I was ashamed,” said a Nepalese man.
Officials from Woori Bank had a hard time answering the questions, so city officials said they would figure the problems out and provide the information later on the Web site of the Seoul Help Center for Foreigners (http://shc.seoul.go.kr/).
Sound familiar? Unfortunately this is the 9th foreigner forum and having these issues raised here means either that these are surprisingly new challenges or that its a recycling of complaints from last years forum. From what I've experienced with Korean culture I suspect the latter. I tried researching for the minutes of past meetings to make the comparison, and even though the schedule has an item to take up the minutes from the 8th Seoul Town Meeting, the link for further information circularly sends you back to the home page:
13:30 ～ 13:35
13:35 ～ 13:40
Opening Remarks (Vice Mayor)
Welcoming Remarks (FIAC Representative)Brief Follow-up on 8th Seoul Town Meeting (document available on-line at http://shc.seoul.go.kr)
I did find this document, a pdf file that may be the correct link. Unfortunately it really doesn't tell me much; contrast latest foreigner police problem with the 8th forum's collection of policing problems:
1. What have SMG [Seoul Metropolitan Government] done in order to prevent spitting and littering? ⇒ Those people can be caught and be fined. 2. Emergency phone number available 24hours? ⇒ 112 for criminal cases. 3. Ways to report law breakers? ⇒ Dial 112. 4. Good driving habits nurturing law? ⇒ Driving law is applied 5. What do you think about smoking in public place? ⇒ They should be fined. 6. Is it possible to prevent riding motorcycle in sidewalks? ⇒ Clamp down on those riders starting from this coming May. 7. Bus no.3 in Iteawon is blocking the sidewalk at night ⇒ Inform the local officials of the fact. 8. Why policemen don't prohibit riding motorcycle on the side-walk? How to improve traffic conditions in Seoul? ⇒ Pan-National campaign is being scheduled. 9. Blinker light and siren of police patrol cars are bothering. ⇒ In case of emergency, public understanding is required. 10. Discrimination against diplomat cars and US army vehicles. ⇒ Law enforcement is unbiased for everyone 11. Road signs are confusing at times ⇒ Report it to the local government when you find error.
Apart from the minutes there are some other points to the foreigner's forums that make it feel like a half-hearted or even useless attempt at changing a basic element of Korean culture. Elements like the officials from Woori bank not being able to explain their own foreigner policy, the fact that foreigners had to pre-register for a Friday lunch-time meeting, or even logic of offering complimentary tickets to Ballerina who loves B-Boyz.
It's been well documented that I'm a map nerd. When I first got to Mokpo I immediately set about using Google's Satelitte photos to compensate for the touristy map that I was given:
Thanks to great KoreanInternetControversy I took the effort to learn some Korean (via my language tools) and I've managed to move away from my Google maps and fully embrace Naver maps. But Graham over The Scroll of Bifurcating Considerations has found what I thought was too nerdy to talk about: The Novelty Plane. While it's old news to me (Google maps tells me that I found it June 2nd), Graham goes for gold with his analysis:
These measurements put it WELL within the realm of a normal jet airliner. The length is consistent with the larger models of the Boeing 767, as is the fuselage. What I haven't been able to match to my liking is the wingspan; 134ft for a 201ft long plane is a bit short. That gives this a wing:length ratio of about 2/3 (.0667). Most jet airliners I looked at have a ratio closer to .8333. So, the mystery lives on. What jet has these specifications? and more importantly, why is it perched on top of a building?
When ever I'm in Seoul I like to dine at 에베레스트 (aka Everest Restaurant). I've talked about it before but I like enough that it deserves it's own blog entry, complete with links to maps, the Naver Local and even it's own business card information:
Given Google's plan for world domination it's hard to imagine why it is having such a hard time getting a foothold in Korea. Then I found this article that explains it all:
A prevalent theory in Korean dotcom circles is that Google failed to impress demanding Korean customers with its lousy service. This is at least what Naver and other major local portals want Koreans to believe.
Choi Mi Jung, who leads Naver's "Knowledge Man" service, a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia built by the spontaneous participation of Netizens, scoffs at the sloppy interface and unfriendly way Google's Korean site presents its search results. "It is how meticulously their service was designed that made the difference," she says.
However, the real reason behind Google's difficult path in Korea is that its highly praised search technology was rendered practically useless in the Korean language sphere when major portals decided to block Google search robots from crawling around the content they hold, industry observers universally note.
It's a Walled Gardenapproach and it basically means that all information is basically owned by one company. This model works well in a monoculture environment, just like it did during the early North American dial-up days where your Internet provider was also your content provider.
Following the path of AOL that worked so well during the early days of dial-up connectivity, Korean websites decided to build their own "walled gardens" on the net, where users would create content themselves or copy and paste other content they found elsewhere.
But what worked well in the beginning will not scale well when Naver tried to grow:
Experts say Naver will not be successful on the global scene if it refuses to take the approach of sharing data with others.
They warned the dominance of Naver and its operator NHN could become diluted, even on the domestic market where the Web portal has prevailed over the past few years.
"In the 10-year history of the country's Internet business, the title of the leader has changed twice. Naver should not be complacent," said Peter Kim, CEO at UCC site Pandora TV.
"Naver is overly proud and sometimes it appears to be arrogant. That has been a signal that heralds the collapse of the top player. Naver should keep this in mind," he said.
Actually, history here has created an eccentric jinx that any Internet firm claiming the top spot stays there for no longer than three years.
Around the Bloc is travel memoir by Stephanie Elizondo Griest relating "her experiences as a volunteer at a children's shelter in Moscow, a propaganda polisher at the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece in Beijing, and a belly dancer among the rumba queens of Havana."
There are plenty of book reviews to judge if it's a good read or not, but what I found fascinating was how Griest tales of interacting with Communist China are eerily similar to waygooken's tales of interacting with South Koreans. There are tons of examples, but here's two dealing with mianzi, the respect of "face" that has hindered so many foreigners. Take for example dealing with a superior:
Late that September, I heard word that Lao Chen wanted to meet with me. Widely rumoured to have been a People's Liberation Army officer in his youth, Lao Chen had the unenviable job of keeping tabs on the danwei's foreign experts. After politely inquiring about my well-being, he announced that nearly all of his experts had requested the following weekend, Chinese National Day, off.
"So we'd like to offer you the opportunity to work in China Daily for us that Sunday and Saturday," he said grandly.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I can't I've already made plans to go to Shanghai then."
"Why don't you think about it for a few days and let me know what you decide?" he countered.
Assuming he misunderstood, I repeated myself. "I'm sorry but I really can't. I'm going to Shanghai for the holiday."
"So think about it and let me know."
I stared at him. What was he trying to do, play some Jedi Knight mind game on me? "But...I know right now that I can't. My friend and I bought plane tickets and booked a hostel in Shanghai weeks ago.
"Think about it, and let me know if you can help us," he repeated, his face stony.
This continued for five excruciating minutes, neither of us giving and inch until someone else entered the room. Then I stalked of, furious at both of us: him for being so difficult to deal with and me for not knowing how. Time like that, I almost envied "ugly Americas" for being so blissfully unaware of their cultural faux pas. Far worse is being cognizant that you're blowing it but are unable to figure out how to stop.
If there was a textbook on native speaker and co-teacher interaction, this would be a textbook example. The key points here are plans made without consultation, illusion of foreigner's choice, and debate by refusal to acknowledge foreigner's statements and the repeating of the statement again. It's so common a pattern that's really expected in all aspects of Korean life and requires some preparation of effective strategies. The easiest example to illustrate this pattern is dealing with vacation.
Another great example of the same-same but different comparison is in the glaring cultural ignorance of African Americans. I already posted about the Korean views about African and the visibly similar and I hinted that what most foreigners experienced wasn't really limited to Korea. Greist confirms this in the same chapter:
I learned this the Saturday afternoon my paper held a free screening of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner for our readers. To give the event some authenticity, Lao Ye asked me (token American) to introduce the program's hostess, a Chinese professor of American culture. Some 250 colleges students showed up that day, and never having seen the movie I lingered beyond my duty. The screening took nearly three hours, as the professor kept on pushing the pause button to expound cultural insight. Her commentary made my blood run cold, though: Not only did she refere to African American as "Negroes," she pronounced it like "Nig-gar-o"--and the the students followed suit. Unease churned in my belly. Should I correct her, at the risk of her losing mianzi? Or let it slide?
After the film ended, the student asked more questions about the present-day status of "Nig-gar-oes," and the professor responded with the stats she probably researched in the 1960s. At last, one girl stumped her: "What's the difference between a drive-in and drive-through?" The professor thought a moment or two before her eyes lit up: "I know--let's ask our American friend!"
I had every intention of promptly sitting back down after my response, but once those 250 pairs of eyes focused on mine, my years of training as a race and diversity facilitator for the dean of students at UT [University of Texas] surged forth as an extemporaneous speech about people of color in my country. When I mentioned that the terms Negro and Colored had been obsolete for as least three decades, the professor--who had been beaming beside me sank into her seat. I quickly tried to return the floor to her, but a dozen hands shot up, each with a question for me. I spoke for nearly fifteen minutes, during witch time the professor left the premises.
My colleagues brought the program to a close, but a clump of students followed me outside for more discussion. Once their numbers dwindle to a manageable half dozen, I invited them over to drink tea. They stared back aghast, as if I'd suggested smoking crack instead. When one boldly agreed, however, the others trotted behind. As soon as we were locked inside my apartment, the real questions spilled forth. Did I have any black friends? Could I trust them? Why were they so violent? Did they really dress the way they did on TV? What made their hair stand so high?
Never actually having met a black person, they had formed their perceptions largely through Hollywood and news coverage of the race riots that erupted on several Chinese college campuses in the 1980s against African students accused of "stealing" their women." I tried to explain racial profiling and stereotyping by drawing a parallel between blacks and people a little closer to home: the highlight oppressed Muslim Uighurs of northwest China. They didn't buy that analogy ("But Uighurs really are that violent!"), but the message seemed to stick when I revealed a few stereotypes that many American had of Chinese. ("But I'm terrible in math!" on protested.)
eBay made an entrance in Korea around 2001 and stirred up the market. Unfortunately it is slightly confusing since unlike eBay England, eBay France, or even eBay China, eBay refused to impose the eBay brand on Korea. The result is auction.co.kr and it is simply known to Koreans as Auction. It is a great site for bargains in Korea, but you'll need a Korean credit card or a somebody with a Korean credit-card to make purchases. Alternatives auction sites are:
Flickr'sjsj6169 has started collecting photos of various trains stations around Korea, including a slightly outdated snapshot of Mokpo's own yeok. Interestingly enough enough the photos gives the day of May 15, 1913. I'm guessing that's the initial founding date and not the date of the photograph.
Interestingly enough jsj6169 also gives the name and street address of the station in Hangul; this could be useful when using Naver'slocal or map sites.
광주예술의 거리 (aka Kwanju's Art Street) is located in the Dong-gu district. Mokpo expat artists usually visit the street during their on their grocery or coffee runs and pick up art supplies, crafts, paintings, ceramics, souvenirs, etc; compared to North American prices supplies like paper and canvas is fairly cheap but transporting large items back to Mokpo can be troublesome. If you plan the trip on the weekend you can also shop at the Saturday flea market.
Art Street is close enough to Shinae YMCA (and related Starbucks) that you can get there by giving the same taxi directions and simply walk across the main street to the K.E.B. Bank and keep walking down the alley until you reach the police station.
There's an unfortunate stereotype that the police in Korea are corrupt, inefficient and just plain slow. The stereotype is apparently live and well; Micheal Williams (The Metropolitician) got arrested for reporting harassment to the police. His exchange (in Korean) was recorded and in the comments he warns:
And if you're a foreigner, document, record, grab witnesses, and make sure your ass is covered. Imagine last night WITHOUT conversational Korean skills?
I'm one of the foreigners who has no conversation skills and unfortunately would be utterly useless; I wouldn't even think to record the incident.
It's funny how this incident contradicts the official policy of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. Of course a little digging gives us this gem from the FAQ:
I want to report a foreigner for misconduct (sex trade and trafficking, or gambling).
If you witness an incident involving a foreigner or know an foreigner who was involved in misconduct(sex trade and trafficking, gambling) you can report that matter to cyber 112 center of Seoul metropolitan police agency, visit the nearest police station or call 112 on your phone.
For some reason Koreans seem proud of their four seasons. Maybe it's pride is too strong a word, but Koreans at my school take extra care to inform me of the special days when one season starts and the other season begins. It's a little bit eerie since the only other people that I know who do this are Wiccans.
Of course conflicts occurs when the foreigner perceives a season starting too late or (in my case) too soon. For example, no matter how cold it gets in November the school will not turn on the heating system until December.
Although the temperatures are approaching the freezing point, Koreans do not push the little button that magically warms the room. Whether the venue be school, work, a store, or a restaurant, Koreans are either completely indifferent to temperature preference or everyone is too cheap to warm up the air to be a little more comfortable. It kind of reminds me of my Dad and how he wouldn't turn on the furnace until December, but to the extreme! "Just put on a sweater." Sorry Dad. It is so cold inside that no one bothers taking off their winter jackets once they get inside.
For a little perspective this isn't a case of bring a sweater to work, my school is so poorly insulated that there are literally gaps in the windows where the wind whistles through.; my average English classroom temperature is 10C. I walk around the school to find that windows are left wide open. Given all of the other examples of Korean Komfort, I can't understand the mentality towards winter heating. I'm not alone questioning this logic:
First off, I can't feel my toes and am super cold because there is no real heating system in my school and I have to wear open toe slippers at work. There's only heating in the office and maybe the classroom, not sure if the heat is just from the number of students haha. The rest of the school is freezing and as everyone complains about the temperature, pretty much every window is wide open. Sigh...my friends and I have been saying that when in Korea, take anything that seems the most illogical and apply here because that's how it seems to work haha.
Mondegreen "is the mishearing of a phrase as a homophone or near-homophone in such a way that it acquires a new meaning." It's a pretty common occurence to experience it in ones own language. It even happens in a Korean context when some people hear I love only squid instead of I love only you. But as Ellison points out fun starts happening when the phenomenon crosses two different languages, courtesy of the genius of Buffalax:
Today is the day all high school students take nation wide university entrance exams, the equivalent to the American SATs; Michael Hurt's Seoul Glow has a nice report of what this means for the students, the schools, and even the nation of Korea itself:
Fortuntely there's a small collective of waygooken runners in Mokpo. They organise themselves in Facebook and try to do at least one race every month using the main running calendar over at Marathon Online.
There's also a number of route planners on the net; my favourite one so far is WalkJogRun and it let's you mark your route on top of Google Satellite photos. Take, for instance, the Jello Mando's Yudalsan Endurance run. It's just a 7.5k run but it's as hilly as hell.
Despite the legality of corporal punishment, it is still used in schools. A couple of weeks ago the Digital Chosunilbo ran a piece on one case that went too far and was captured on video:
Pepero Day is an non-official holiday here in Korea solely based on the stick cookie of the same name that is oddly familiar to arguably more famous Pocky. Pepero Day is one of those Korean specific novelties that is a staple in any living in korea blog. Take for instance Pepero Day 2004, 2005, 2006, and of course, 2007. At first it may seem like a cute equivalent to valentines day, but then you soon realize what a annoyingly monolithic corporate driven holiday Pepero Day actually is.
First, there the commercials:
and
And a sample of Pepero Day festivities:
Along with a view of the Pepero Day vendors:
KungZoo caps it all off with a decent history on Pepper and Pepero Day:
In case you ever wanted to see one, Joseph Buchman has posted his online at It'll be like this forever: I don't know how safe it is to post your driver's license online but take it for what you will.
Schoolfestivals are a staple of Korean student life, premises for Korean romantic comedies and a usual topicforexpatbloggers. (Jeonnam Jeil is no exception) The festivals are usually day long events, organised by the students for the glory of performing in front of the school principal. The other students and teachers are invited to attend as well, but really if you've seen one festival you've kind of seen them all. There's the recognizable elements, like the school band or even the taekwando team demonstrations, but then there's the uniquely Korean elements, like the cross-dressing dance off set to the music of the latest girl band:
In fact it seems like it's a crucial part of Korean identity to (publicly) dance to sugar pop songs, as seen by this:
And this:
And even this:
It's easy to start up your own Wonder Girl tribute dance group thanks to the Internet and the original, karaoked version:
Wikia is a like wikipedia, but not. I don't quite understand how it's different, but it's another place on the internet where you can find informaiton about Mokpo, like:
Mokpo is located on the southwestern tip of Korea in the province of Jeollanam-do.
A quick search on the Internet will reveal that racism and xenophobia is quite prevalent in Korean society. There's tons of blogs, articles, and forum posts to define the treatment that non-Koreans get within Korea. While it's not quite as pronounced as in some othercountries, both do exist and are an unavoidable by-product the Korean monoculture.
Damn Foreigners As previously mentioned, financial institutions recently created some extra restrictions for foreigners and these extras hoops, based more on fear than reality, are a good illustationg of Korea's institutionalized xenophobia:
Foreigners who stayed here less then three months will be banned from opening new accounts, raising concern about possible discrimination against foreigners.
For those foreigners who lived in Korea for more than three months, they can open accounts with the provision of their qualification papers, including work permits and identification certificates.
But they will not be able to access online banking and ATMs in the first three months even after they opened an account. They will need to directly withdraw and transfer money over the counters at banks during business hours.
The industry essentially said that they hold the entire foreigner population responsible for recent incidents of scams and in turn exonerates any Korean national. From a western stand point this seems like trying to swat a fly off your nose with a shot gun withought any though for your head. But in this case it somehow made sense to punish the many to get at the few. When the policy went into effect this fall it wasn't long before the short-sightedness was made apparent and criticized:
When a Chinese resident in Korea went to an ATM machine run by the Korea Post during the Chuseok holidays, he was taken aback by a text that appeared on the screen asking him to confirm his identity at the service counter. Since it was a holiday, the post office was closed, leaving him without cash throughout the break. ... But the blameless Chinese man felt it was discrimination. "They treat us as if we're some kind of imposters," he said. Korea Post says it only meant to protect innocent citizens from fraud, but admitted the measures could have affected another innocent group.
The policy is suspended but there are other laws still in place that specifically target the foreigner community based on an institutionalized foreigner fear; consider the foreigner-illusive credit card:
...I cannot get a credit card in South Korea because I am a foreigner. The banks say giving credit cards to foreigners is risky because they might leave. They give credit cards to unemployed teenagers ... In Australia, anyone can get a credit card. So most foreigners in Korea believe that the Korean banks are racist. We also think that the Korean treatment of the tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese who have been born in Korea or lived here for 50 years - but who can't get Korean passports - is institutional racism.
In the simplest of terms, financial institutions do not trust foreigners. All of them. And the portrayal that foreigners get in the national media doesn't help calm these fears. Starting with the image of foreigners as a illegal migrant workers, news agencies paint their stories with themes of illegal drugs, miscegenation, and the ever popular Chester the Molester (sex-hungry foreign men preying on helpless Korean girls) spin. And all while subtly equating foreigner crime to English teacher crime. Gusts Of Popular Feeling incredibly details the entire history (since 1996) of Korean media's construct of male English teachers and Mongori has a nice coupleofexamples for viewing:
While the main institutions stop at the Korean & non-Korean divide, the more omnipresent monoculture continues the segregation and actually divides the foreigners into the good and the bad. A quick peek into the adventures of foreigners gives us this racial hierarchy:
Thais and Malaysians are ignored by taxi drivers or humiliated in department stores, and Africans are called all sorts of names by uncouth Koreans who see black people for the first time in their lives. Africans actually say that they have never faced such severe discrimination in any other country. In contrast, Caucasians from so-called advanced nations such as the US or European countries are given royal treatment that borders on the absurd even in the eyes of the Caucasians themselves. It is ironic and also disgraceful that Koreans, so sensitive to the discrimination they suffer as the ethnic minority in the West, are so used to discriminating against foreigners at home.
A job posting for North American Caucasians (more on this here) seems to celebrate this pecking order and firmly places African or the visibly similar down at the bottom. Unfortunately, this hierarchy is so tightly bound to the monoculture that most Koreans simply cannot understand this as a violation of human rights.
The African Problem A long post by Jasmine on a 2003 thread in Dave's ESL Cafe illustrates the two main factors in the Korea's African problem. First there's the blatant discrimination,
We were told repeatedly by recruiters that the schools they were hiring for wouldn't hire black people. It took us months to find a job in Korea this time around...always the same story - "I'm not prejudiced but....it's the parents, it's the directors". Not only are they racist, but they lie about it and deny it - which I think is worse.
and then there's the cultural ignorance
Not a day goes by that my boyfriend doesn't hear - "Oh! A-puh-ri-ka saram". He's American. On top of that, he been asked a barage of stupid questions like: are you in a gang? Do you own a gun? Do you play basketball? Nice raggae perm! Like people can't grow curly hair naturally. And, oh, my god, the staring.
The more you look at the discrimination problem, the more you understand that Korea is not alone and in fact all of Asia appears to have the same unfounded belief that lighter skin is righter:
European imperialists are often blamed for bringing the "lighter skin is righter" mentality to indigenes of colonized lands in Africa and Asia. Critics of this mental colonization don't always acknowledge in the same breath that many North African and Asian cultures had placed a premium on light skin PRIOR to European exposure. Indian folk songs praised the beautiful woman who has "the color of butter" (Indian butter is white, not yellow). Pre-colonial Indonesian women used plant-based skin treatments to make their complexion pale.
However, the fact that pre-colonial colorism exists does NOT absolve Europeans of their responsibility for indoctrinating non-European populations with harmful racial ideologies. Pre-colonial colorism in many cultures is fundamentally different from modern Western racism; the vocabulary and assumptions used in the discussion of modern racism are not necessarily helpful or relevant in understanding pre-European-contact attitudes towards complexion.
And within the Asian historical context there is some economic reasoning behind this colorism:
Pre-European-contact colorism occurs in the context of members of the same "race" (quotes being used because "race" is a modern Western concept we are applying anachronistically). Wealthy people did not have to work in the sun, and thus were lighter-complexioned than poor workers and peasants. Light skin became a symbol of wealth and class. Fatness, another physical characteristic associated with a lifestyle of prestige and plenty, was also deemed attractive. Famed medieval North African writer Ibn Battuta described "the most perfect of women in beauty" as "pure white and fat."
But attitudes remain relatively unchanged since the day of feudal landlords; this article about China could have easily been written about Korea and illustrates the modern mentality.
"According to your status in society you receive different benefits and power. Rural people and city people; ordinary people and officials. In such a social structure, we can predict that the Chinese will have very strong feelings of racial discrimination."
Yu believes dark-skinned foreigners are likely to face more obstacles than whites, as many Chinese see them as inferior.
Many have ingrained impressions of African wars, famine and disease from the mass media, says the sociology professor. Plus a perception of a dichotomous West with exclusively well-educated and prosperous whites, and poverty-stricken ethnic minorities.
If colorism is the basis of Asia's African Problem, then, like the rest of Asia, Korea has done little if anything to correct the perception and continues to exacerbates the situation. The Korean monoculture still irresponsibly applies the skin dichotomy to immigrants and continues to construct incorrect images of dark skinned people; the stereotype of the tribal Negro is instilled during childhood and runs around almost unchecked in Korean adult life.
They Don't Mean to be Racist, but... There's something to be said about those embarrassing moments when you make an ass out of yourself. And then there's something to be said about those embarrassing moments when you make an ass out of yourself on tv. But what is some culture's comedic blunder is another's comedic gold. The recent Misuda scandal is a good example to illustrates a cultural ignorance that's almost understandable when displayed in the vacuum caused by the Korean monoculture.
All was as it should be—maybe—until lovely African-American Leslie Benfield was performing a rendition of a Korean song. It was then that one of the panel—singer Cheon Myeong-hun—jumped up on stage wearing a rasta wig and began chanting "sikameos, sikameos," a reference to a black-face routine made famous by comedian Lee Bong-won."
The anger from the incident shows that Koreans understand that racism is bad thing, or at least that it is wrong to insult a pretty girl, but the producers somehow didn't know that Black Face Comedy in front of the African American may be considered a social faux pas. At first the show refused to apologize:
The show’s production team, however, told StarNews there was no racist intent behind Cheon’s stunt. They explained Cheon did what he did to give the show’s atmosphere a bit of a boost. They also said they have no intention of dropping Cheon from the show.
A couple months later an apologetic interview with the woman in question, Leslie Benfield, emerges and tells a different story.
"Oh, you mean the Shikamoes thing? Yes, I was really surprised they left that in." I was perplexed expecting her to be livid, given that "sikeomeotta" (from which "Shikemoes" derives) means "jet-black." However instead of siding with recent public animosity and demanding his head on a proverbial platter as many of Korea's legions of online "netizens" have done, she surprises me again with, "I feel sorry for him. I heard he got fired for it."
She continues, "Anyone who lives abroad experiences ignorance." She said instead of singling out one person and demanding an apology for their actions, we should think about why we find certain things funny. It was a statement that really made me think, especially as I watched Sacha Baron Cohen's infamous character Borat.
For those who are still not satisfied, he apologized to her in person after the show.
Cultural ignorance isn't just limited to television. It creeps up now an then in unexpected ways. Take, for example the entry for advertising that is the only graphic used within the entry. Ruminations in Korea has more on the entry and a brief peek into the history of Slavery in Korea. Or, better yet, take the Hitler Bars, a series of Nazi themed bars sprinkled around Korea. An interview with an owner reveals that, like the producers of Misuda, he simply didn't know that spending 50,000,000 on a bar who's patron was responsible for one of the worst genocides known to mankind (let alone ignoring the imperial Japaneseconnection) would be a bad idea. And, while yellow star cocktails may seem like an amazing black-humour novelty drink, when Koreans add anger to this ignorance and they create their own Konglish style of anti-semitisicm:
Like the African problem, the fascination (and consequential) ignorance of German Nazism goes beyond the Korean monoculture and is prevalent is other parts of Asia thanks to a lack of education:
In some parts of the world, World War II is not taught in schools as a battle of political ideologies, but as a conventional war. This type of education means that Hitler and the Nazi Party are not treated as war criminals or evil, but merely as charismatic and powerful leaders of countries during wartime. Some east Asians are interested in what Adolf Hitler said about east Asian history and philosophy; the Nazi work ethic; as well as militaries that wore Hugo Boss uniforms and drove tanks made by Porsche and Mercedes-Benz.George Burdi, the former head of the neo-Nazi record label Resistance Records, claimed to have sold many CDs to Japan, because some Japanese believed themselves to be the white men of the east. In Turkey, Hitler's book Mein Kampf is an annual bestseller.
From a Korean perspective however it seems that both scandals could be avoided if somebody in charge took the time and effort to understand the cultural difference. While Koreans make so much effort (at least from personal experience, here in Mokpo) to educate the foreigners to the Korean Way™, they don't recognize anything outside of their monoculture and in turn fail to establish cultural equivalents. Equivalents like the emotions generated by Golliwog and Comfort Women toys.
The Uncategorizable A system that enforces a racial hierarchy breaks down when dealing with Mixed-Bloods; the monoculture segregates pure and impure Koreans the same way that it segregates Korean against Non-Korean and White against Black. How close Multiethnic Koreans get to the respect jackpot depends on how well they blend into the hierarchy's good kind of people. Again this phenomenon isn't localized to Korea and different Asian countries have their own take their own emerging multiethnic populations:
I recently noticed that TV in Japan is filled with half Asian and half White people, who are simply called “half”. I was shocked to find that even kid’s programs on TV have many “half” people. I suppose the “half” people represent the Japanese desire to be more international. What is interesting is that they no longer are interested in 100% White people. The overt idolization of white people is apparently over. They now prefer somewhere in between. I would imagine that this trend is also being fueled by the popularity of White-male Asian-female couples in the 80s and 90s. Their kids are now in their teens, ready to sing and dance.
The popular Korean example is Hines Ward, the first Korean-American to win the Super Bowl MVP award. The monoculture (imported by his fellow Korean immigrants in U.S.A.) at first shunned him because of his African-American father and his Korean mother but later, after he became famous, he was suddenly Korea's favourite son. The news agencies create the impression that any Korean, once they have found fame and fortune, would naturally love to return their ancestral home. The story outside of the media tells a different story:
From April 3 through May 30, 2006, Ward returned to his birthplace of Seoul for the first time since his parents moved to the United States when he was one year old. Ward used his celebrity status to arrange "hope-sharing" meetings with multiracial Korean children and to encourage social and political reform. Ward cried when describing the discrimination he faced. At one hope-sharing meeting, he told a group of children, "If the country can accept me for who I am and accept me for being a Korean, I'm pretty sure that this country can change and accept you for who you are." On his final day in Korea, he donated $1 million USD to create the Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation, which the AP called "a foundation to help mixed-race children like himself in South Korea, where they have suffered discrimination."
And the agencies that did acknowledge his mixed parentage did so by highlighting his Korean mom and downplay his African American dad:
One dangerous tendency I noted, from not only conversations with my friend, but also with the way the Korean media talks about him, is the way Ward's mother's "good" seems played against the African-American father's "bad." This is what's responsible for my friend's easy assumption that Mr. Hines may have a contentious relationship with blackness, which resembles the somewhat "disciplinary" tone that I sense in the way blackness-as-deadbeat-father is or may be played against sacrifice-as-Korean-mother.
Korea the Multicultural If Hines Ward did anything, he at least became a poster child for anti-discrimination in Korea, being herald as the symbol of South Korea's multiculturalism:
Capping it all was Ward’s triumphant visit last month to his native South Korea, where he was feted by its president and hailed by the local media as a Korean hero and a symbol of new South Korean multiculturalism.
The monoculture's dominance should be evidence enough that the level of multiculturalism is at best a novelty in Korea; calling Ward a symbol of Korean multiculturalism then borders on irony since, at last count, most English teachers have spent more time living in Korea than Ward. But there's now a celebrity associated with the problem and that in turn is stirring up some self reflection. But a another hidden factor for that self reflection is that Asian countries have the same aging population problem as other industrialized countries:
The name Sony summons visions of all things Japanese. Yet its board chairman, Iwao Nakatani, recently called for mass immigration, opening Japan to different faces and influences.
Mr Nakatani is worried because Japanese are living longer, yet having fewer children. The result is a shrinking workforce which threatens economic growth.
The real challenge to the Korea's racism and xenophobia is its own desire to maintain economic growth; more and more Koreans are realizing that the monoculture must change if they're going maintain their western-like standard of life:
As many as 10,000 Vietnamese brides enter Korea each year, and with an ageing population and low birth rates the country’s dependence on foreign labor is going to intensify. We should not look down on these people because our economy is better off. These are pillars of the Korean economy who work in the “three D” (difficult, dangerous and dirty) areas of Korean industry, working hard for low wages without complaint. Is it not overly cruel to put them to work, directing them with body language, the day after they arrive still confused? They are not slaves sold here for low wages. We need a mature attitude that recognizes their human dignity and individuality.
Even though it will look like Hines Ward single handily brought multiclturalism to Korea, behind the scenes it'll because of Korean economic policies. As a brilliant counter-example, the neighboring NorthKoreans who have a different, internal economic model are free from such financial pressures:
Such changes have prompted North Korea's Rodong Shinmun (the Workers Party`s paper) to fiercely criticize the South Korean government.
It said, "South Korea is denying its national race and its 5,000-year history by professing to be a multiracial nation. Such moves will Americanize Korea, ruin its past history and weaken the power to combat dominative U.S. forces."
The North Korea idea to associate America as the source the multiculturalism is somewhat incorrect. Recently the pure foreigner population broke the 1,000,000 mark but it's the Chinese immigrants who make up the largest group, following by Vietnamese, Filipinos, and Thais. And the increase of foreigners implies that the multiethnic population will also grow:
In fact, demographic trends indicate that by 2020, there will be considerably more than 1.5 million mixed-race Koreans. One in three newborns will be multi-racial, and one in five people under the age of 20 will be multi-racial. For the next 15 years at least, South Korea is going to be an easy target for those wanting to highlight its xenophobia - but given its dynamic demographic nature, a multicultural Korea may not be far away.
While economic policies will break down racist and xenophobic laws in Korea (and in theory make everybody sign and dance in a big happy circle -- just like America), the mechanism that will create the new generation of multiethnic Koreans is the monoculture itself:
Tens of thousands of South Korean men look to China, Vietnam and beyond for wives, in response to a shortage of brides caused by a generation of gender-selective births. Since ultrasounds became widely available in the 1980s, parents in South Korea could screen out undesirable daughters, resulting in a gender imbalance of 113 males for every 100 females. The countryside’s shortage of marriage-age women is exacerbated, with young women migrating to the cities and escaping the patriarchal lifestyle of their youth, in search of careers and urban husbands. The trend also diversifies the homogeneous country while aggravating comparable shortages of women in China and elsewhere. With men willing to pay up to $20,000 to tie the knot, the global trade in wives is quickly becoming big business.
With a poster boy, economic incentives and a bunch of babies who are a byproduct of a self-destructing monoculture it seems like Korea (well, South Korea) is slowly warming up to the idea of a multiethnic society that against racism and xenophobia:
Office worker Lee Eun-yeong (30) received a proposal from a Canadian friend, a man working at a Korean company, to go to a sogaeting. Eun-yeong happily said yes. “Thinking that your lover and life partner must be a Korean man is so old-fashioned, isn’t it? My parents? I’ll think they’ll be ok with having a foreign son-in-law.”
Korean society is quickly becoming multi-cultural with a diverse population. The number of foreigners living in Korea passed 1 million on the 24th of last month. That is 2% of our population.
Of course the country calling itself multicultural because of 2% seems, by comparison to other more, establish multicultural countries, a bit boastful:
By the beginning of the 21st century, the proportion of people with British, French, and/or Canadian ethnic origins had dropped to below one-half of the total population (46%). (The term “Canadian” ethnic origin was first introduced in the 1996 census.) An ethnic diversity survey published by Statistics Canada in 2003 showed that 21% of the population aged 15 years and older was of British-only ancestry, while 10% reported only French origins, 8% were Canadian only, and 7% were a mix of these three origins.
Jesus. This one hell of a blog post. Since I'm only a couple rungs down from True Korean on the Korea Racial Hierarchy™ my experience differs from otherpeople. I can however recognize the different levels of treatment I get here Mokpo, be it in the staring contests I get into with stragers, random children yelling "Hello, how are you!" from across the street, or even in the service that may be a novelty not shared by some:
The men sitting next to us bobbed their heads and smoked. We made a sort of wordless toast to the music, and the three of them, Yoo-te and the men, asked us if we were familiar with the Korean concept of service-ah. "Service," Konglish again, and yes we were. Free stuff (sweet!). Yoo-te took down a fresh bottle of Hennessy V.S.O.P, and cracked the plastic. Woaaahhh, thought we, hold on a sec. Free?, at over $160 on the menu, we had to confirm. The men poured shots, and together, to a fuzzy-bliss soundtrack, we shouted "gambay!" and took in the smoky pleasure that is good cognac.
This Thursday one of my schools decided to take me out to lunch. Beautiful! They even took me a to a vegetarian restaurant, because they weren't sure what I could eat or not. But then they started to pick me apart for the way I eat with my chopsticks.
I eat with these people every week in the cafeteria, they've seen how I eat with chopsticks, and have never said anything. Now we're in a restaurant and they're making a big deal about it. It was so embarrassing. They were being very loud and making a big scene showing me how to do it. People were starting to watch.
I guess I'm pretty lucky in that regards.
I know that I'm just wading into the this area of Korean social studies; Scribblings of the Metropolitician, The Marmot's Hole, Foreign Dispatches, and even ROK Drop are all better places to hang out for recommended reading since they love this stuff and do a better job at me at following the day to day stories.
text.jpg)
