This post was inspired by the following comment, left by Megan on this post:
Do you find it in any way EASIER being a foreigner in a country where you physically look foreign than you did, say, in Russia? I ask because although I've lived abroad for some time now, I've only been to European countries, and I always feel like I should try to fit in as much as possible and sometimes feel scared of being publicly "outed" as a foreigner (moreso in Russia than in Sweden). I sometimes think if I were in a place where I just COULDN'T fit in it would be in some ways more difficult, but in other ways somewhat liberating. Am I making any sense?
Do I find it easier… For me, Korea is easier than Russia in that strangers and service industry staff are more helpful and more patient with my foreignness than their surly counterparts in Russia ever were. However, my scant Korean skills make life over here far more challenging in a lot of ways. But that's such a simple answer, and this was such a complex question, one which has spawned all sorts of thoughts in my head. So prepare yourselves for a bit of a long post, oh readers.
First one must consider one’s race, the country in which one is located, and one’s country of origin. During my three extended periods in Russia, I spent a lot of time trying to blend in. True, I’m not as hot as so many of the devushki, but given the right clothes (and you know how I *love* Russian clothes) and the right facial expression, I can be (and often have been) mistaken for one. This meant that during my time in Russia I could (usually) walk the streets in anonymity. Unless someone stopped to talk to me, my status as an inostranka (foreigner) would remain my little secret.
Now, if you’re a foreigner in Russia, the ability to blend in definitely has its advantages. For one thing, Russians love to charge one price for Russians and another, much higher, price for foreigners. Getting into museums and the like for the Russian price can be done, assuming one looks the part and says as little as possible. Other than times when I wanted to avoid foreigner rates, I never really worried too much about being outed as an American while I was in Russia. I’ve spent a lot of time in Russia (including my first trip in 1999 when, owing to the presence of US troops in the former Yugoslavia anti-Americanism in Russia was - according to the US State Department - at a ten year high) and I have never personally encountered anti-Americanism.
But racism now... that’s something a little different. Being a whitey who spent most of her time in Russian cities where the overwhelming majority of the population was also white, racism was never a problem I encountered personally, although it’s something that is a lot easier to spot. Let me give you some examples:
In the American Home, I taught students who ranged in age from teenagers to retirees. Students of all ages were very candid about their views on race, and these views came out when we watched Forrest Gump in class. I was very surprised to hear some of my students say, “Oh yes, I’m racist. I don’t like black people,” quite calmly and candidly in class.
My friend Youngmee, a Korean-American who taught at the same school as I did last year was unable to blend in as I could, since the Western Russian city in which we lived was populated nearly entirely by whites. As far as I know, Youngmee never ran into any trouble on account of her race, although on more than one occasion she was told “Russia for the Russians!” by passersby. (“Russia for the Russians!” is a nationalistic slogan that frequently appears in Russian graffiti these days. Obviously, the morons propagating this slogan have never ventured into the Russian East, which is chock-full of Asians.)
Two years ago, a tan-skinned Italian-American working at the American Home was arrested and harassed by the police on more than one occasion; because of her skin color, she resembled a Chechen, and was therefore suspected of being a terrorist. Things got so bad for her that she ended up leaving the country several months earlier than she had planned.
Additionally, there have been several well-publicized murders of non-white foreigners in Russia in recent years. Suffice it to say that Russia isn’t exactly the friendliest of places for non-white travelers. Of course, if you read Caitlin’s comment on my previous post, you’ll see that this is not a problem endemic to Russia:
I did find that the Swiss (based on a year's worth of experience in Swiss high school classrooms) can't comprehend a Western society with black, Asian, or otherwise not-white people as citizens on equal terms with whites. I brought my high school yearbook in and the kids pointed and laughed at -- you guessed it -- EVERY SINGLE black face in the damn thing. And if you know Lake City, you know that they did a lot of laughing. I had another kid (Dutch kid) get really puzzled when I explained to him that people in Vancouver, Canada, could be of Asian decent AND STILL BE Canadian. He pulled back the edges of his eyes with his fingers and said, "What? Canadian???"
But let’s shift the focus of this post to South Korea. Now, I have no hope whatsoever of blending in over here. Even if I spoke fluent Korean and owned a 100% Korean wardrobe, my foreignness would still be obvious a block or two away. I am a very, very, very light-skinned whitey; I’m always going to stand out over here. Luckily for me, most Koreans are incredibly helpful to white foreigners. I find that nearly everyone is very patient with my fumbling attempts to communicate in their language, and they tend to laugh good-naturedly when it becomes obvious that I understand little more than a handful of Korean phrases. I’ve had complete strangers offer to help me numerous times. And let’s not forget the frequent greetings!
Anti-Americanism is present here, although it is most commonly associated with the US military presence, and we civilians are rarely bothered by it. I did have the misfortune during my first trip to Korea back in 2001 of having an Anti-American psychobitch as my boss (she told me to my face that she hated all Americans and had only hired me because parents preferred American teachers); however, I have personally encountered no other anti-Americans during my three trips to Korea.
But, then we come back to racism. Luckily for me, Koreans apparently view white people as second on the totem pole of quality, below Koreans of course. When applying for a job teaching English in Korea, native-English speaking candidates are required to submit a photograph. White teachers are preferred. Jobs can be found for Asians, but it’s difficult. If you’re Hispanic, chances are low; if you’re black, they’re essentially nil.
As a result, non-white foreigners don’t get the same fabulous treatment by the Korean masses that we whiteys do, and that’s damned unfortunate.
Let’s take what happened recently to African-American woman Leslie Joanne Benfield. She speaks fluent Korean, and in 2004 she became South Korea’s first foreign civil servant. That in itself is awesome and shows amazing progressiveness on the part of the Seoul government. Recently, Benfield took part in a Korean talk-show, featuring sixteen young, hot, foreign women, all of whom reside in Korea. They were supposed to talk about their lives in Korea, answer questions, and do the rather absurd things that people on Korean shows tend to do (sing and dance and make an ass of yourself, in my opinion). But anyway, the idea of the show supposedly was to break down cultural barriers. Instead, one of the panel of Koreans put on an afro-wig and got up on stage with Benfield and began mocking her. [check out the Marmot’s Hole for the full story]
The Metropolitician, an African-American living and working in Korea has created an online petition demanding an apology from KBS (the tv station which produced the talk show). The following is an excerpt:
I, as a black person and foreign national living in Korea, continue to be shocked and offended at the Korean media's continued racist and sexist stereotyping of foreign people. From the Bubble Sisters to now, the excuse has always been "we didn't know" or "the intention wasn't to offend" – but is that really an excuse? Many of your general viewers and citizens' organizations seem to know. Why doesn't a national television station?
Do you find it in any way EASIER being a foreigner in a country where you physically look foreign than you did, say, in Russia? I ask because although I've lived abroad for some time now, I've only been to European countries, and I always feel like I should try to fit in as much as possible and sometimes feel scared of being publicly "outed" as a foreigner (moreso in Russia than in Sweden). I sometimes think if I were in a place where I just COULDN'T fit in it would be in some ways more difficult, but in other ways somewhat liberating. Am I making any sense?
Do I find it easier… For me, Korea is easier than Russia in that strangers and service industry staff are more helpful and more patient with my foreignness than their surly counterparts in Russia ever were. However, my scant Korean skills make life over here far more challenging in a lot of ways. But that's such a simple answer, and this was such a complex question, one which has spawned all sorts of thoughts in my head. So prepare yourselves for a bit of a long post, oh readers.
First one must consider one’s race, the country in which one is located, and one’s country of origin. During my three extended periods in Russia, I spent a lot of time trying to blend in. True, I’m not as hot as so many of the devushki, but given the right clothes (and you know how I *love* Russian clothes) and the right facial expression, I can be (and often have been) mistaken for one. This meant that during my time in Russia I could (usually) walk the streets in anonymity. Unless someone stopped to talk to me, my status as an inostranka (foreigner) would remain my little secret.
Now, if you’re a foreigner in Russia, the ability to blend in definitely has its advantages. For one thing, Russians love to charge one price for Russians and another, much higher, price for foreigners. Getting into museums and the like for the Russian price can be done, assuming one looks the part and says as little as possible. Other than times when I wanted to avoid foreigner rates, I never really worried too much about being outed as an American while I was in Russia. I’ve spent a lot of time in Russia (including my first trip in 1999 when, owing to the presence of US troops in the former Yugoslavia anti-Americanism in Russia was - according to the US State Department - at a ten year high) and I have never personally encountered anti-Americanism.
But racism now... that’s something a little different. Being a whitey who spent most of her time in Russian cities where the overwhelming majority of the population was also white, racism was never a problem I encountered personally, although it’s something that is a lot easier to spot. Let me give you some examples:
In the American Home, I taught students who ranged in age from teenagers to retirees. Students of all ages were very candid about their views on race, and these views came out when we watched Forrest Gump in class. I was very surprised to hear some of my students say, “Oh yes, I’m racist. I don’t like black people,” quite calmly and candidly in class.
My friend Youngmee, a Korean-American who taught at the same school as I did last year was unable to blend in as I could, since the Western Russian city in which we lived was populated nearly entirely by whites. As far as I know, Youngmee never ran into any trouble on account of her race, although on more than one occasion she was told “Russia for the Russians!” by passersby. (“Russia for the Russians!” is a nationalistic slogan that frequently appears in Russian graffiti these days. Obviously, the morons propagating this slogan have never ventured into the Russian East, which is chock-full of Asians.)
Two years ago, a tan-skinned Italian-American working at the American Home was arrested and harassed by the police on more than one occasion; because of her skin color, she resembled a Chechen, and was therefore suspected of being a terrorist. Things got so bad for her that she ended up leaving the country several months earlier than she had planned.
Additionally, there have been several well-publicized murders of non-white foreigners in Russia in recent years. Suffice it to say that Russia isn’t exactly the friendliest of places for non-white travelers. Of course, if you read Caitlin’s comment on my previous post, you’ll see that this is not a problem endemic to Russia:
I did find that the Swiss (based on a year's worth of experience in Swiss high school classrooms) can't comprehend a Western society with black, Asian, or otherwise not-white people as citizens on equal terms with whites. I brought my high school yearbook in and the kids pointed and laughed at -- you guessed it -- EVERY SINGLE black face in the damn thing. And if you know Lake City, you know that they did a lot of laughing. I had another kid (Dutch kid) get really puzzled when I explained to him that people in Vancouver, Canada, could be of Asian decent AND STILL BE Canadian. He pulled back the edges of his eyes with his fingers and said, "What? Canadian???"
But let’s shift the focus of this post to South Korea. Now, I have no hope whatsoever of blending in over here. Even if I spoke fluent Korean and owned a 100% Korean wardrobe, my foreignness would still be obvious a block or two away. I am a very, very, very light-skinned whitey; I’m always going to stand out over here. Luckily for me, most Koreans are incredibly helpful to white foreigners. I find that nearly everyone is very patient with my fumbling attempts to communicate in their language, and they tend to laugh good-naturedly when it becomes obvious that I understand little more than a handful of Korean phrases. I’ve had complete strangers offer to help me numerous times. And let’s not forget the frequent greetings!
Anti-Americanism is present here, although it is most commonly associated with the US military presence, and we civilians are rarely bothered by it. I did have the misfortune during my first trip to Korea back in 2001 of having an Anti-American psychobitch as my boss (she told me to my face that she hated all Americans and had only hired me because parents preferred American teachers); however, I have personally encountered no other anti-Americans during my three trips to Korea.
But, then we come back to racism. Luckily for me, Koreans apparently view white people as second on the totem pole of quality, below Koreans of course. When applying for a job teaching English in Korea, native-English speaking candidates are required to submit a photograph. White teachers are preferred. Jobs can be found for Asians, but it’s difficult. If you’re Hispanic, chances are low; if you’re black, they’re essentially nil.
As a result, non-white foreigners don’t get the same fabulous treatment by the Korean masses that we whiteys do, and that’s damned unfortunate.
Let’s take what happened recently to African-American woman Leslie Joanne Benfield. She speaks fluent Korean, and in 2004 she became South Korea’s first foreign civil servant. That in itself is awesome and shows amazing progressiveness on the part of the Seoul government. Recently, Benfield took part in a Korean talk-show, featuring sixteen young, hot, foreign women, all of whom reside in Korea. They were supposed to talk about their lives in Korea, answer questions, and do the rather absurd things that people on Korean shows tend to do (sing and dance and make an ass of yourself, in my opinion). But anyway, the idea of the show supposedly was to break down cultural barriers. Instead, one of the panel of Koreans put on an afro-wig and got up on stage with Benfield and began mocking her. [check out the Marmot’s Hole for the full story]
The Metropolitician, an African-American living and working in Korea has created an online petition demanding an apology from KBS (the tv station which produced the talk show). The following is an excerpt:
I, as a black person and foreign national living in Korea, continue to be shocked and offended at the Korean media's continued racist and sexist stereotyping of foreign people. From the Bubble Sisters to now, the excuse has always been "we didn't know" or "the intention wasn't to offend" – but is that really an excuse? Many of your general viewers and citizens' organizations seem to know. Why doesn't a national television station?
I am one foreign national who works in Korea, pays taxes, rent, utilities, and otherwise participates in the economy here. I have done good work here that has benefited the Korean economy as well as the countless Korean students, researchers, professors, and other working professionals I have come into contact with, as much as I have benefited from working with them.
I am tired of seeing overtly crude representations of foreign workers as supposedly being unable to speak proper Korean (most foreign migrant workers here speak Korean very well, actually), or hearing the "ching chong" parodies of supposedly Chinese speech, ridiculing Japanese for the wooden footwear they rarely even wear any more than Korean wear traditional rubber shoes, or the constant efforts of the Korean media or the Kyeonggido chapter of the Korean Teachers' Union implying or outright saying that foreigners have "low sexual morals" when in fact no scandal involving foreign teachers and student minors has ever been reported, even against the context of a media that constantly reports about incidents involving Korean teachers and students, as well as "wonjo kyojae", a set concept that doesn't even exist in American culture, are regularly reported as major social problems.
This distorted view of foreigners is merely on example of the simplistic stereotypes through which foreigners are seen in Korea. [click to view and sign the full petition]
I'm not really sure how to conclude this, so I suppose I'll stop typing now and go to bed.
4 comments:
Sadly, Racism occurs every country against foreigners and minors in forms of discrimination, ignorance, contempt, and hatred violence.
Wow, what a response. I suppose I should clarify that by "liberating" I meant letting go of my fear of being outed and just behaving more naturally.
I also realize that "looking foreign" can mean very different things to different ethnic groups depending on who you are and where you are, and white people almost invariably have it easier, which is wrong and absurd.
In Russia I often felt like it was dangerous to be seen as foreign regardless of race, because foreigners of any kind are targets for robberies and police harassment. I had a knife pulled on me once after a guy overheard me speaking Russian with an accent on my mobile phone -- followed me into an elevator and demanded my phone. And Kostia was always hushing me if I spoke English outside the city center, worrying that we'd be confronted by hooligans, even though he's Russian!
You know, I never had any problems because of my foreignness when I was in Russia (other than being charged damn foreigner prices!). The only time I ever felt that I would be in danger if my status as an American was discovered was when Misha and I accidentally ended up in the middle of a Communist demonstration in Moscow. That was definitely unnerving, and we just kept our mouths shut. But I never had any problems...
One thing you didn't mention that I think is true is that American women and American men are treated very differently here.
I live in Seoul and have lived in Korea for nearly 6 months. I am still surprised to see foreigners around, frankly. I do NOT walk up to them and talk to them. I very rapidly learned that someone is not my friend simply because we (probably) share a common tongue. Besides...I didn't move to Korea to live around Americans (or Westerners, for that matter).
I think I understand what Megan is asking. While I am intrested in Korean culture and while I'm trying to learn the language, I am automatically given a pass on a lot of stuff because of my skin color. I don't have to be afraid of being found out.
Re: language, especially, I don't bother to keep my mouth shut. I do the best I can in Korean and whatever I spit out tends to get, "Oh! Very good Korean!" Compare that to people in America who may speak Spanish in public only to be told they need to speak English. I get gaped at on the subway when I speak Korean on the phone, and obviously that's because of my skin.
(Again, I am reminded of my sex here. I have a male American friend who's worked here for three years and sometimes been scolded for not speaking Korean well enough--he speaks it very well now, and he's actually gotten scolded for speaking Korean too well! "Korean is for Koreans.")
Also, I once told a friend that a very convenient thing about being a foreigner here (esp. if you don't speak the language) is that you can remove yourself from situations. People are talking about something and you don't want to be social? You don't have to be. You're foreign. You don't even have to fake those niceties from back home. You know, asking about the weather and the job and the house and the baby, blah blah blah when really, you couldn't care less about any of those things.
However, being The Foreigner does get old. I once told my Kwanjangnim (in incorrect but understandable Korean), "In America, I am Amanda. In Korea, I am a movie star." I also (with the help of a bilingual friend) told him that part of the reason I liked our studio so much is that I don't feel like "Amanda the Foreigner" there. I feel like "Amanda (Who is The Foreigner Only When We Want to Use Her Status for Our Benefit)."
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