Quote: (03-12-2012 04:34 PM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:
Once again, huge kudos jdreise for your very detailed reply on comparing teaching in Korea vs Thailand. Did you notice any of the infmaous racism if not hostility, that you hear/read a lot online about Korean people in general, specially when being seen with their girls?
Thanks again for all your awesome golden nuggets you've been dropping here!
You're welcome!
Racism... man, I've got some stories for you. I speak some Korean, which most foreigners there never attempt to learn. Koreans look at foreigners and think that there's no way in hell you could possibly understand what they're saying, so they'll make racist and derogatory comments right in front of you with a smile on their face. I was called "dog," "big-nose," "monkey," "dirty," "stupid," "horse face," "chicken head"... the list goes on. I'd
always let them know that I understood their insults. I didn't care if it made the situation awkward. Fuck them for being ignorant assholes.
Sticks and stones may break my bones... Yeah, words are just words and while they may sting, it's the actions that take place that should be more cause for alarm.
I'm about 6'1 205 and in excellent shape. Unless you're a MMA fighter guy with anger issues or some guy with serious little man syndrome you probably wouldn't try to start a fight with me. It doesn't matter about your size, I wouldn't fight with you either because I don't see any reason to start problems. You'd think with Koreans being a much smaller and weaker group, they'd be less inclined to start shit. Not so. I'll get there in a minute...
Yeah, they're a racist and closed-minded society. Up until Japanese colonization Korea was known as the "Hermit Kingdom." It was closed to outsiders. Part of its isolation was due to plain geography. It's a very mountainous peninsula, surrounded by sea on three sides (durrrr... peninsula) and mountains and boreal forest to the north. The other cause/reason for their isolation may be that it was a way to maintain their culture and state against the comparatively massive imperial forces in China and Japan. Even though they've opened their borders and become a global industrial power, you can't erase thousands of years of a tribal culture that was always strongly opposed to outside influence, with 30 years of making cell phones and crappy cars. They have a tribal mentality coupled with a victim complex after 80 years of imperial Japanese rule and now American military presence.
So yeah, it's a place that's a breeding ground for xenophobia, racism, and ignorance of the outside world. Most Koreans never leave their little peninsula.
Also, you have to understand that most Korean boys practice taekwondo growing up. They can fight. Military service is also obligatory for all Korean men. Also, after having been to both countries, I'd say Koreans drink about as much as Ukrainians, which is to say, "in excess." Haven't been to Russia so I can't compare it but if you walk around a bar or restaurant area on any night of the week at about 11 or 12 you'll see people passed out on the sidewalk, in the gutter, on benches. They're a bunch of alcoholics.
So you have an ethnically homogeneous population of xenophobic (I'd wouldn't say racist), militaristic drunks that can all throw down if they want to. It sometimes causes problems.
One time I had just finished eating dinner with my then-girlfriend and was saying goodbye to her in the hallway of a shopping mall-like building so that I could go meet some buddies and play pool. All of the sudden someone came up alongside me and sucker punched me in the side of the head. I stumbled and crashed into the wall next to an elevator then realize that blood was pouring down the side of my face. If this had happened in the States my first inclination would have been to charge and beat whoever did it senseless but the first thought that popped into my head was, "You're in Korea. Don't fight"
A couple weeks prior one of my buddies was eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant on a popular walking street. Out of nowhere some guy came up behind him and pulled his chair out from under him causing my buddy to fall on the ground. He stood up and there was a small confrontation that resulted in my friend slapping this Korean guy. One slap. Not a punch that drew blood or caused a bruise. Just a slap. The police were called in and it was determined that since my friend "won" the "fight" he had to pay the other guy for "insulting his honor." If he refused to pay, he'd be arrested, have his bank account drained and confiscated by the state, and be deported from the country the next day. He ended up having to pay the equivalent of about $2000 US to this guy for a slap.
I've heard other stories where foreigners have done serious physical damage to Koreans, had to pay out big, ended up in jail, and then been deported. The law is against you there and there are Koreans that know it and will provoke you in order to get some easy cash. Getting your face rearranged by a foreigner means 3 months salary and an all-expense-paid two week-long vacation at the local hospital.
So back to my story... Before even looking up to see who was attacking me I realized that I couldn't hit him. As I came to I looked up and saw a short Korean guy of about 50, dressed in a Hyundai factory uniform, obviously drunk, and yelling obscenities at me. A split second later he was yelling at my gf, calling here a slut and traitor, and shaking his fist her.
At that point, I stopped thinking about not killing him and focused more on protecting my girlfriend. I rushed him, tackled him hard, and then held him down until some other witnesses came over and were able to help subdue him. We had to wait about 10 minutes until the police showed up and during that time the cut over my eye continued to bleed. Some the blood got onto dude's Hyundai uniform.
As we sat there I was pissed off about my eye but started thinking "Fuck yeah! Payback! I'm going to get some money from this fucker and teach these bastards that you can't just abuse foreigners and get away with it." When the cops showed up, I tried to launch into negotiations about what I was owed but they acted like they couldn't understand anything I was saying. Bullshit. My girlfriend started the negotiation while I frantically tried to get the info of other bystanders and witnesses in case I need to prove my story. They told her they had to arrest the guy and that I should try and get a lawyer if I wanted to get something out of him. I was enraged. How can they extort the foreigner when the Korean gets hurt but when the tables are turned the same rules don't apply?
They handcuffed the guy, put him in the car, took a quick report and my info, and then left. I went to the ER with my gf and got some stitches to fix up my eye. There's still a bit of a scar there.
The next day I got a call at work saying that I should come down to the station to answer some questions. The same police officer who didn't speak English and couldn't understand my Korean the night before miraculously had learned conversational English in less than 14 hours! He told me that the Korean was injured from me tackling him and was worried that he might have contracted HIV from being in contact with my blood. LOL!!!! I guess the guy had spent the night in the hospital and had taken the day off from work. I might have to pay for his hospital stay and lost wages. WTF?!?
They said I should go have an HIV test and come back with the results ASAP. I immediately started calling every Korean friend or colleague I had telling them what was happening. They started flooding the police station with calls asking what was happening and demanding that the other guy be held responsible. I figured at that point I should probably follow their advice and go get the HIV test so that I wouldn't give this shithead any more reason to stay in the hospital
While I was in the hospital waiting room. I got a phone call from the cop. He said, "Don't come back station. Now case finished. Sorry." The next day I found out that one of my colleagues got a hold of the director of schools in my city. The director called the police and threatened to call their higher-ups and the newspaper if they didn't drop the case. So they did. That was that. I got a nice scar above my eye and shithead got to assault a foreigner and get away with it.
I have other stories too, like the time one of my friends was riding a motorcycle through an intersection and got hit by a van that ran a red light. It was the middle of the night and there were no other witnesses. As my buddy (who can speak Korean) was laying there bleeding with a dislocated shoulder he heard the Korean guy get out of the car and say to his wife, "Don't worry, it's just a white guy." They called their friends and had them come down to tell the police that it was my friend that ran the red light. He spent two weeks in the hospital, had to have his shoulder reconstructed, had to pay for all the damages to the van, and his motorcycle was totaled. Since he was "in the wrong" the judge decided that his Korean wife and her mother had to go to the drivers house beg for forgiveness and offer a monetary gift.
So yeah, there's palpable racism in Korea both in the legal system and the way that people treat you. However, most people are very kind and genuinely want you to think well of their country. You didn't ask about that aspect of life there though, so I didn't go into. Those are two incidents that marred my time there but I still believe they are far overshadowed by the everyday kindness that I experienced from most people there.
Korean girls are hot too. Just sayin'
