Yawn (The Shocking Reality About Relationships With Foreigners)

Almost every popular foreign blog in Korea has reported on the brief MBC documentary on how foreigners are corrupting innocent Korean women. A facebook group has also sprung up to combat this instance of Korean racism, with at least one of the more prominent members belonging to the group which attacked me a few weeks ago for complaining about racism in Korea.

I really have nothing to add about any of this race-baiting hypocrisy beyond my observation that people in Korea do not seem to attack me when I’m in the company of my Korean wife and 1/2 Korean 1/4 Russian 1/4 Irish child, as it’s obvious that we’re in what conservatives would consider a wholesomely wedlocked relationship. Before my wife was pregnant, however, Koreans everywhere viewed both of us (but my wife in particular) with scowling disgust the moment we walked outside, as she had committed the unpardonable sin of touching a foreign white man, thereby corrupting the purity of the Korean race—an idea which, like almost everything else in modern Korea, was shamelessly copied from fascist Japan.

But let’s not dwell too much on these issues. I’m only writing this article at all because my wife and I were handed a pamphlet several days ago which demands the resignation of the CEO of MBC, Kim Jae-chul, for reasons wholly unrelated to this racist broadcast. Apparently this man has been embezzling company funds; many of the channel’s employees have been on strike for months in response to a perceived pro-government bias, which may be one reason why this piece was produced in the first place, as MBC is (rather absurdly) denying any responsibility for the broadcast because they say the segment was not produced in-house, presumably since all of their employees were still too disgusted with the management to stop picketing and come back to work. One poster, “Smithington”, on Dave’s ESL Cafe wrote that while this segment was definitely problematic, the bigger problem was the fact that there isn’t a single Korean organization that will hold MBC accountable for their yellow journalism. I only wanted to throw this pamphlet into the pot to show that Koreans are angry at MBC, though not because of its racism—

Foreigners at the facebook page are planning a protest, but even if such a protest were to occur, I’m fairly certain that a few hundred chanting foreigners will have absolutely no effect. Concerned waegs should instead take a page out of Korea’s book, and sue the shit out of MBC for defamation. Who knows, they might just be able to wring a few dollars out of this whole thing, and get other Korean media outlets to think twice before they start accusing hagwon monkeys of purposefully spreading HIV.


Comments

Re: Yawn (The Shocking Reality About Relationships With ...

I have visited Korea once and for the most part I was treated OK but there were some who would not even let me enter their store because of the simple fact that I am an American. I was not offended, just laughed it off because hey, there was someone else just a few feet away willing to let me shop. I think that race-baiting is happening all over the world and it is the governments and special interest groups doing it, not the people.
 

Sometimes things get out of hand rather quickly and when governments create fake race-wars instead of explain it all things can get very ugly real quick so I hope it stops.