Support NeoGAF

[CadetMahoney]

Asian countries, especially the homogenous ones like SK and Japan are very racist. Not surprise here.

Pretty much, they are racist to other East Asians. If that's how they treat their neighbors it comes as no surprise, although they have conflict reasons to also have those attitudes on top of just being racist, especially against Japan and vice versa.

I personally wouldn't want to live in any of those countries anyway.

 

[freeofgreed]

I agree with this but it's not solely the fault of American media either. It's not like the US invented racism, humans are just stupid. It's only that western media has skewed it in favor of one demographic at the expense of another. Certainly better minority representation in American films would help.

Here in Thailand there's a history of Thai-Chinese families not wanting their kids to marry native Thais. It's something that was prevalent during my parents' generation but younger people are much more conscious of these stereotypes. At least from my perspective. Bangkok is becoming more cosmopolitan. It's still predominantly white men that move here but I'm starting to see more women and some black people as well. The more exposure the better.

Anyway, no matter what your race I encourage people to travel abroad. If you're black go check out Asia. At the very least, you're much safer there than in the US. You'll see the good, you'll see the bad but more importantly you'll see it for yourself.

good post.

 

[Mook1e]

This is by no means new.
My wife encountered the same issue when working as an English teacher in Japan in the 90s.
Part of it is the perception that African Americans don't speak standard English, and sadly there is some truth in it. Most Americans have a local dialect or accent, but ebonics needs to be put away already.

On a side note, it's kind of funny, but not really, that occurrences like this and the fact that black people are subject to a myriad of other discrimination pretty much everywhere is so surprising.
It reminds me of Dave Chappele's comedy routine about police beating black people. We've known about it forever, but now that there's social media and the Internet it's impossible to deny (kind of, plenty of people keep denying it even with video available of police choking black people to death)

 

[Aranath]

When I was applying for teaching work in Korea, I was running into problems with schools not being interested.

My recruiter told me flat out one day it's because my CV stated that I was born in South Africa and they would just instantly bin it for two reasons:

- they think I'm black
- I have a South African accent

Except I'm white and I have a mostly British accent. She told me because I'm a British citizen, to just cut all the South African stuff off my CV. I refused and after getting a bunch of shitty job offers just went to Spain instead.

 

[dan2026]

Did South Korea learn about the races of the world from Punch Out! or something?

 

[Scarecrow]

To be fair, I had heard this anti-black stereotype before I started this first year of teaching. But, when I got to my current university, there were three or four Jamaicans, a British girl, a dude from Philly, and another girl from LA. So, not all schools will discriminate against skin color so easily.

 

[Slayven]

This is by no means new.
My wife encountered the same issue when working as an English teacher in Japan in the 90s.
Part of it is the perception that African Americans don't speak standard English, and sadly there is some truth in it. Most Americans have a local dialect or accent, but ebonics needs to be put away already.

On a side note, it's kind of funny, but not really, that occurrences like this and the fact that black people are subject to a myriad of other discrimination pretty much everywhere is so surprising.
It reminds me of Dave Chappele's comedy routine about police beating black people. We've known about it forever, but now that there's social media and the Internet it's impossible to deny (kind of, plenty of people keep denying it even with video available of police choking black people to death)

Nope, folks learn how to code switch if they want to get anywhere in life

 

[ReBurn]

I was traveling through the Mideast and Asian subcontinent when Ebola was raging and there were tons of places with signs like this.

 

[DonasaurusRex]

Sterotypes huh, wonder where they got it from American Media....

nah they don't need help and on top of that Japan cant stand Korea, Korea cant stand Taiwan, Taiwan don't like China, which doesn't like Japan, who is sorta cool with Taiwan.

 

[ZeroX03]

When I was applying for teaching work in Korea, I was running into problems with schools not being interested.

My recruiter told me flat out one day it's because my CV stated that I was born in South Africa and they would just instantly bin it for two reasons:

- they think I'm black
- I have a South African accent

Except I'm white and I have a mostly British accent. She told me because I'm a British citizen, to just cut all the South African stuff off my CV. I refused and after getting a bunch of shitty job offers just went to Spain instead.

Why would you have the country you were born in on your CV?

 

[DonasaurusRex]

This is by no means new.
My wife encountered the same issue when working as an English teacher in Japan in the 90s.
Part of it is the perception that African Americans don't speak standard English, and sadly there is some truth in it. Most Americans have a local dialect or accent, but ebonics needs to be put away already.

On a side note, it's kind of funny, but not really, that occurrences like this and the fact that black people are subject to a myriad of other discrimination pretty much everywhere is so surprising.
It reminds me of Dave Chappele's comedy routine about police beating black people. We've known about it forever, but now that there's social media and the Internet it's impossible to deny (kind of, plenty of people keep denying it even with video available of police choking black people to death)

What the fuck does ebonics have to do with a person trained to teach ESL? You think a trained professional is going to be unable to speak in plain English knowing full well the people he's talking to have no point of reference to understand them. THATS the thing that needs to go, are you crazy? Yeah you right how can I go against the melanin in my skin, I have to talk like I'm with friends and family even when at work....why deny the truth of the origin of species of favored races....

what the .... ebonics?

holy shit the time machine works....its 97 and ebonics is a word still

....not the game... practice....

 

[Porcile]

Why would you have the country you were born in on your CV?

With English teaching jobs it's quite important (important in the employers eyes that is) that you're a native English speaker.

 

[numble]

This is by no means new.
My wife encountered the same issue when working as an English teacher in Japan in the 90s.
Part of it is the perception that African Americans don't speak standard English, and sadly there is some truth in it. Most Americans have a local dialect or accent, but ebonics needs to be put away already.

On a side note, it's kind of funny, but not really, that occurrences like this and the fact that black people are subject to a myriad of other discrimination pretty much everywhere is so surprising.
It reminds me of Dave Chappele's comedy routine about police beating black people. We've known about it forever, but now that there's social media and the Internet it's impossible to deny (kind of, plenty of people keep denying it even with video available of police choking black people to death)

These places usually require people to have certificates for teaching English...

 

[M3d10n]

South Korea is a good example of how access to formal education by itself has little impact on reducing a population's overall ignorance. This is the country where death by fan was making the rounds in the media, to the point fan manufacturers started adding timer functions to their fans as a "security measure".

 

[Entryhazard]

I wouldn't have hired him because Americans don't speak English

 

[truly101]

I remember how Outside the Lines had some documentary on how South Korea wanted to honor Hines Ward, but he had dealt with severe racist attitudes from his mom's side of the family for years, so it was difficult for him to come to terms with.

 

[kagete]

Try being half Filipino and dealing with other East Asians professionally. They've treated me like a dog in the past (when I worked for a Japanese company and worked with Korean and Chinese companies by proxy and directly). Racism is as casual as a handshake over there (edit: in certain circles dominated by "the old guard"). Glad to work only in the US now.

Late reply for me but damn is this ever true. I'm not sure if dog is any better than monkey (saru irrippin jin) which is what we've commonly heard from the Japanese in IT.

There are dozens of non-white ESL applicants that are rejected because they don't "look American". I assume this happens yearly and is just standard process by now.

 

[Shanks D Zoro]

Why would you have the country you were born in on your CV?

With English teaching jobs it's quite important (important in the employers eyes that is) that you're a native English speaker.

well you can't get a visa without being one so yes it is extremely important.

 

[freakzilla149]

I'm sure I could find some racist ads from the UK or Norway if I had time to google a bit, they probably wouldn't directly show black faces, because they know they can't.

(btw, second one is from Italy, not Switzerland)

My point is: racism is still a common thing all over the world, we're wrong when we assume we're immune and just laugh at a place like Korea. They know they can't have that "in your face" attitude, but they're still here.

You can't just handwave away this kind of blatant racism by saying you can dig up racism in Europe if you did a bit of googling.

Yes, there is racism in Europe, but we also have large immigrant communities from basically every country in the world. We have systems set up to protect them from abuse. If something like this popped up in Britain we'd be hearing about court cases now.

 

[Fergie]

If I remember correctly (I think I read about this on /r/Korea a few months back), the guy is on some TV show here. The lady recognized him and was just surprised to see him.

edit: this is apparently him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Okyere

It's actually someone else. https://www.facebook.com/joelroberts

 

[Aranath]

Why would you have the country you were born in on your CV?

Well, as the others said, you legally need to be a native English speaker, so I needed them to know I spent my entire education in an English speaking education system where my primary language was English. I only went to high school in England.

Also the fact that I'm still a South African citizen too, so I needed them to know that for immigration reasons.

 

[Crimson-Death]

Sterotypes huh, wonder where they got it from American Media....

nah they don't need help and on top of that Japan cant stand Korea, Korea cant stand Taiwan, Taiwan don't like China, which doesn't like Japan, who is sorta cool with Taiwan.

It's not at all surprising these sorts of places engender ignorant racial paradigms.
The history of their cultures and conflicts among them plus their lack of critical thinking abilities and xenophobia make for one nasty cocktail of prejudice.
The plebs in charge of the everyday cogs in the wheels of society do not particularly care to challenge their reality, to expand their little worlds, and they are not afforded opportunities to do so anyway.
Common individuals can barely handle their own lives, and in those kinds of countries they are never exposed to "others."
Not an excuse for their attitudes, but a sad explanation.

It's bad enough in certain "isolated" places of the US, so it's not surprising to me it's so much worse in mostly homogenous countries. I do thank my damn fortune to live in such a richly diversified area of the country where I deal with so many cultures of the world everyday, and despite what some morons would claim there will not be any race or religious or cultural wars down here in southern California. Yet even so there are the occasional idiotic bigots, so exposure is not everything. The world has millennia to go before all mankind is intelligent enough and good enough to end racism.

 

[Stinkles]

Kind of an ignorant question, but what happened to your accent?

I'm genuinely curious

20 years in the states, working in writing and communication and a natural unintentional talent for mimicry.

 

[sixteen-bit]

This is super gross.

 

[TimeEffect]

Pretty much this.

Sorry can't find the gif.

***Edit, found it!

Isnt the black guy famous or something?

 

[superseohyun]

You know people keep saying that whenever that gif is brought up, but the reactions of the guy and lady don't really line up with that. They have pure fear on their faces.

That guy is his friend... i highly doubt it was pure fear on his face.........

 

[cw_sasuke]

While it sucks... At least they are honest about it.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

this makes me sad

 

[funkypie]

I laughed hard at this.. And dog lol.

 

[Mook1e]

What the fuck does ebonics have to do with a person trained to teach ESL? You think a trained professional is going to be unable to speak in plain English knowing full well the people he's talking to have no point of reference to understand them. THATS the thing that needs to go, are you crazy? Yeah you right how can I go against the melanin in my skin, I have to talk like I'm with friends and family even when at work....why deny the truth of the origin of species of favored races....

what the .... ebonics?

holy shit the time machine works....its 97 and ebonics is a word still

....not the game... practice....

WTF are you talking about?
Don't get upset with me because of what I experienced.
Holy fucking shit fuck!
There are plenty of people trained to teach who do it poorly because of their garbage English in schools all over America.
Get fucking real.
Edit...lol, "Yeah you right..." please tell me you did that on purpose...or? SMH ebonics

These places usually require people to have certificates for teaching English...

As stated above. A certificate to teach doesn't negate bad habits in english which pass on to students.
I'm not saying it's the norm, but it happens and can influence things.

 

[theowne]

So as someone interested in Japanese culture I used to read quite a bit about expats in Japan and that also extended to occasionally reading about expats in Korea.

I think people are mistakenly calling the two equivalent. It seems to me the flavour of xenophobia is different.

There used to be a blog by a black guy in Japan that was pretty popular. He occasionally talked about the stereotyping, or staring, and occasional discrimination that occurred there . But overall, his experience is positive, he loves living there, his interactions with Japanese overall tend to be positive with some bad apples, he married someone there, etc.

In comparison, I also read a blog by a black guy in Seoul. And this guy absolutely hated his life. His entire blog ended up being almost purely about complaining about the every day treatment he would get.

The Japanese may be ignorant and naive about race relations, but they do not appear to have the maliciousness about it that seems to be prevalent in Korea.

 

[HORRORSHØW]

So as someone interested in Japanese culture I used to read quite a bit about expats in Japan and that also extended to occasionally reading about expats in Korea.

I think people are mistakenly calling the two equivalent. It seems to me the flavour of xenophobia is different.

There used to be a blog by a black guy in Japan that was pretty popular. He occasionally talked about the stereotyping, or staring, and occasional discrimination that occurred there . But overall, his experience is positive, he loves living there, his interactions with Japanese overall tend to be positive with some bad apples, he married someone there, etc.

In comparison, I also read a blog by a black guy in Seoul. And this guy absolutely hated his life. His entire blog ended up being almost purely about complaining about the every day treatment he would get.

The Japanese may be ignorant and naive about race relations, but they do not appear to have the maliciousness about it that seems to be prevalent in Korea.

citation needed
--
there is no excusing racism in korea, and as a korean it upsets me very much; however, i'm going to need more than anecdotes and innuendo that suggests racism and discrimination is malicious in korea. we have to remember that korea's been open to the world for only 50-60 years; it's been a cloistered culture for millennia. i'm not trying to excuse its behavior; rather, i'm trying to understand how and why they view foreigners the way they do. 50-60 years ago we were hanging black men from trees in america; today we're shooting them on the spot. progress? i hear the word xenophobia thrown around like that's the primary reason for racism in korea (and japan). perhaps it factors into it. there is fear and hesitancy of the unknown, ignorantly so. but what of our multicultural country?

 

[wildfire]

I'm surprised the recruiter didn't warn him. It's common knowledge that getting a teaching job is almost impossible for black people in Korea.

I don't think there's a need to put teacher as a qualifier.

 

[numble]

WTF are you talking about?
Don't get upset with me because of what I experienced.
Holy fucking shit fuck!
There are plenty of people trained to teach who do it poorly because of their garbage English in schools all over America.
Get fucking real.
Edit...lol, "Yeah you right..." please tell me you did that on purpose...or? SMH ebonics


As stated above. A certificate to teach doesn't negate bad habits in english which pass on to students.
I'm not saying it's the norm, but it happens and can influence things.

A university degree and a English teaching certificate is more indicative of a person's ability to teach English than some perception of bad speaking habits based on a person's race.

 

[Gr1mLock]

 

[Mr. Giggles]

I'm not surprised tbh, I went to see my ex in Seoul 2 years ago. People would give me really dirty looks as we walked down the street, I loved the city but I definitely felt that the older generation needed to die off if the stigma of xenophobia was to finally fade.

 

[Mook1e]

A university degree and a English teaching certificate is more indicative of a person's ability to teach English than some perception of bad speaking habits based on a person's race.

As already stated, these aren't "some perceptions" based on race.
These are observations from someone who is black, who lived in Asia for 10 years, with a spouse who taught English.
There are plenty of people who have university degrees and obtain certificates with horrible English. I'm not excusing shit, I'm just offering some perspective.
I'm talking about post-grad degrees too.