I recently got stuck in a 3 hour rant about Korea with Ashika, who was wonderful about it as she usually is but it made me realise that I don't speak about the junk stuff on my blog. So if you don't want to know, then stop reading now.
Due to length issues I've broken this up into four posts. This is the first.
Racism, classism and the white refugees.
I'm not sensitive to racism. I don't try to find it but I also do see it even when it's not directed at me. I know that racism isn't always a direct action, it's also a set of beliefs around race. And in Korea the idea that white is better is rife. Strange, you say, in a country where everyone is fairly the same colour, definitely the same 'race'. Well in Korea darker skin is associated with poorer people. The third world east asian countries, Thailand, The Phillipines, those are poorer nations, their people have darker skin, due to nothing more than climate, but that adds to Koreas notion of the inferiority of darker skin. Also even if you are Korean and you have darker skin it probably because you are a blue collar labourer and spend more time in the sun... so you're probably not wealthy. The white is right paradigm is everywhere. It's really hard to find face products that don't have whitening ingredients. They don't sell make up for people who have darker skin. Koreans will cover up completely when they are out in the sun, wearing specially designed slip on sleeves that are sold on the street. My co teacher was appalled when I told her I wan't to go to the beach to tan... she told me it is wrong to try to be darker. People of colour have been followed around in shops, and kids in classrooms are teased if they're half Korean and not 'pure' Korean. I showed my little ones a picture of Nelson Mandela on his birthday and they screamed and covered their eyes and shouted "Ugly!". At the time I excused it, when would they have been exposed to a older black man? Maybe it was just surprise. But now I just get really upset and tired when my kids think every black person in the text book is related to me, or is me.
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| Is this man not handsome? |
Maybe it's not a bigger problem now, maybe I've just run out of tolerance.
One of the tricky things about racism in Korea is that I don't have access to Korean conversation. Actions without context can tell a very different story and I never have all the context because so much of the context is in Korea. Also there is foreigner discrimination. Korea is xenophobic, but not weirdly so. It's ok if you're from Europe or America, not so much if you're from Japan. This is for another blog.
I had a mini mental breakdown after the Kony 2012 debacle. I felt awful, it was everything I hated about images of Africa and the role of the west. It confirmed a lot of my suspicions and put into sharp relief the way that the international community viewed Africa and more so Africans. I freaked out about how many of my friends (mostly new friends) reposted the video. I felt like there was wide spread ignorance about what subtle racism does to people, about who the video spoke about and what the video was saying about them... and then, who the speaker was.
On a smaller scale I find that South Africa is primarily represented in Korea by white South Africans, the majority of who seem to be Afrikaaners. There is a common sentiment that South Africa has gone to the dogs and that most South Africans outside of South Africa have "fled". There are forums discussing whether they are political or economic refugees that fled South Africa after they felt they were no longer welcomed. Sidelined from the economy and unable to find jobs, they find themselves stranded in Korea, earning a basic salary of R14,000 or more. Refugees from the land they love so much, missing the sound of African drums that woke them up in the morning, missing the spirit of Africa and the spirit Amarula. And also milk tart. There is a lot of discussion around the "White Genocide" that is currently taking place in South Africa (you might not know about it but internationally it's pretty popular) and a lot of this is being told to people of other nationalities here in Korea. There is very little discussion about reform, about putting back. In some ways I prefer my principle asking my why we don't just eat the fruit off the trees, although these days I cannot tell that story with the same amount of humour as I did back then.
Africa is also represented by non South Africans though. I've met a guy from Zanzibar and a guy from Uganda. But there is a class gap that means that teachers and other migrant workers don't hang out together. The other native teachers, be they black or white, generally avoid these migrant workers. And the migrant workers aren't only from Africa, they are also from Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and some parts of Russia. Although the only thing I heard about the Russians is that they are prostitutes in Korea. A lot of white South African girls get hit on by older Korean men who think that they are Russian. I've tried to make friends with the guy from Uganda as well as the guy from Zanzibar but they seem to lose interest in me if I don't want to give them my number, tell them where I live or they find out I cant help them with issues related to their visa's.
This classism is something that I find in South Africa too and it’s actually gross. I don’t know why I partook in it. It took all this distance for me to feel truly repulsed by it. Everything around race is such a mess... well done Apartheid, well done!
About a month or more a go a really old Korean woman in Buyeo was raped by a black person. I was told this by a Korean friend. She says the police don't know who to prosecute because the old lady cant identify the man, since all of them look the same. Again, I was not upset, I knew that I found it hard to tell Koreans apart when I got here but now that I'm used to it I find it much easier. And when she said it I was trying to not be offended, but I'm tired of it. I want to be at home where I don't have to think about it.
That's all for this segment. I'll send the next as soon as I can.
Don't attribute this negativity to my homesickness alone, some of it is also the cold.
love you all (I've run out of honey and lillets tampons)
Vasti
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