또 깜둥이 대접!

It was just too quiet 'round here to be true, I guess.

(한국인 친구들이 이 링크들을 잦아보세요:

"한국 영어사전은 인종편견 전시장?"

"혼혈인 내가 '워드신드롬'에 짜증나는 이유")

I couldn't blog about the show that is the present subject in question – the "Global Talk Show" or the somewhat literal translation of the Korean title "The Chatting of Female Beauties" – since I don't own a television and therefore wouldn't have anything intelligent to say about this Korean television show that's founded on pretty shaky premises.

From the site:

Roughly translated: "Foreign women from around the world look at Korean culture, Korean men, as well as the present situation of the Korean people."

Yeah. In naughty poses.

Look at all them perty foreign wimmins!

Grrrrrrr.

I've been through the web site and found it pretty questionable – if the goal's bridging international understanding, then why's the show full of young, single, attractive girls? Why are most of the questions seemingly about Korean men's sexual attraction to these women? Anyway, it's barely worth wasting any breath on that crap.

This show is resting atop a hotbed of racist, sexist assumptions, and as it has manifested as such, is itself racist, sexist claptrap for gendered, nationalist penis stroking.

Should I make that clearer? Is that too vague?

This show makes the humiliating antics found through foreigners made to dance and sing Korean folk songs in hanboks to give Koreans a laugh and a boost of pride in "우리 나라" positively pale in the levels of sheer Uncle Tomfoolery. And I ain't saying this because I ain't had a chance to go on Korean television.

This Metropolitician was approached by several major Korean network show "PD's" – who are amongst the lowest forms of life on God's green planet – to go on several Korean comedy shows back when I was young and less fat. I refused, simply because I have a sense of self-pride enough to not go on Korean television and dance around like a chicken ("Make the sound that chickens make in your country!" was the topic of the Sunday-afternoon comedy show I would have been on) or humiliate myself in front of millions of viewers.

"Cause that's not the vision my mom had for me when she popped this Metropolitician out. That's why I didn't go on.

It's not like questionably raced and gendered representation of foreign women is anything new for Korea, or is anything other than completely commonplace:

Oh, let me count the ways this is problematic.

Oh, I could go on, but it's really not worth it. Korean television is not exactly hard to criticize, since it requires few brain cells to watch. But another blackface incident? (Hat tip to the Marmot, obviously).

Look and feel familiar?

Before going any further, you might want to read my previous posts about the matter of blackface and black people in Korea:

"Black Culture, Not Black People"
An opinionated overview of why Korea still doesn't like black people, just black pop culture. Hmm. That sounds familiar...

"Niggers! Savages! It's Just Japaneasy!"
An exploration of some of the ways foreigners are represented visually, on top of gendered representations. This lame-ass show ain't the first place race and gender come together in questionable ways in Korean visual culture.

"Where Do Koreans' Ideas of Race Come From?" (여기는 할글로 번역된 버전이 있어요)
Hmm. I wonder if the fact that school textbooks represented blacks as savages with bones in their noses might have had an influence on any of this.

"Korean Folks Don't Like Black People"
Before you go ballistic over the bombastic title, read it, please.

Shit ain't funny. Let me repeat it for any person reading this who still doesn't get it: THIS SHIT AIN'T FUNNY TO ANYONE BUT IGNORANT PEOPLE. If you actually had international experience, black friends, or even any empathy in your soul, you would be able to understand why THIS IS OFFENSIVE, EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T "INTEND" IT TO BE.

Is anyone really surprised? The "international understanding" cover is a thinly-veiled cover for sexually ogling female foreign bodies – why are they all scantily-clad again? The entire enterprise is offensive – so why would anyone really be surprised when a comedian comes out in blackface and starts dancing with the one African-American woman on stage?

And Leslie, Leslie. I remember secretly rooting for you when I saw that you had become Korea's first official civil servant – my friend who works out of Jesse Jackson's office in Chicago chatted me up on AOL with the news, actually. We was proud of you.

"American Becomes 1st Seoul Civil Servant"

And frankly, as a fellow black person, I was a little disappointed to see you on that show. I liked that image better, of the strong, intelligent Black woman. You certainly didn't deserve that asshole's treatment – but I really can't be surprised, given the racist assumptions of many in this place. I can only say that I hope he has at least apologized in person, even if KBS2 won't do it in public.

Your present line of work is your own choice to make, but given what you surely know about this place, the way you were seen on that show – can we really say we were surprised?

And KBS2 – you can kiss my fat, brown ass.

"It wasn't meant to offend."

SO?! Hello?! It did. It does. It will, if done again. Same lame excuse the Bubble Sisters made. And to all those who followed that line – "Oh, we didn't know" or "we didn't mean it" – so when does one know?

Fellow Korean viewers seemed to be able to figure it out. Koreans, as a group, "know." So why doesn't a fucking television network know? And what kind of incident would it have to take to make it clear to studio execs? Maybe they should try that shit when Hines Ward comes back into town.

Yes, things have gotten a lot better since His Highness cried on Korean TV, met the president, and sat with the Amerasian chillens on TV.

Is KBS 2 sorry? No.

They need to take Cheong Myeong-hun's stank ass off the show as a sign of apology.

Oh – I know – how about they make one in the first place?

I know I just made that podcast with Regina basically saying that Korea's an OK place for black folks – with qualifications – but the Dark Side calleth...man. Gotta keep the blood pressure down...down...

Comments

[Whitey]

Great post!

I'll be watching the show next week. For as long as I can handle it.

[Cobra II]

I could be wrong, but I too sense an immense battle upon the horizon. It's all there: hook, line, and sinker.

Has King Michael "The Lion" Hurt mustered all his forces to engage the enemy without compassion or mercy? But of course he has. In that his majesty never fails. I know we've had our differences but I comment simply to wish you happy fighting.

As Henry so eloquentley said, "Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more.."

Indeed.

[Seven]

You hit the nail right on the head.

"This show is resting atop a hotbed of racist, sexist assumptions, and as it has manifested as such, is itself racist, sexist claptrap for gendered, nationalist penis stroking."

I think that JK will be silent on this one. This show is racist and totally out of line. SICK.

[stef]

1. I think the show is much like the 'Foreign Babes in Beijing' it's more politically correct for Asia to be seen pentrating the west.

2. This may sound weird but before I came to Korea I had never seen a black person in the flesh (I grew up in NZ). I remember the first thing that came into my head when seeing two black women soliders in the flesh in Itaewon was 'oh my gosh, they look just like the women in the audience on the Ricky Lake show.'

I suppose my point is that even though I come from a relatively mutli-cultural society I too had got suckered in to mass-media representations of what Black people are because I didn't have any real frame of reference outside of it. Now at least I'd been taught to see beyond my intital reflex, however most Koreans don't have the luxury of that and stuff like this arises. I agree that their school books need massive revision, and that things need to start from there but I think the fact that this sort of behavior is being questioned perhaps suggests that they are moving past this sort of nonsence.

3. I wonder if the anger expressed in the blogosphere would be so intense if the show hadn't aired that incident. What I find hypocritical about all this anger is that there are Korea blogs that have no problem with eroticising Korean women and other Asian women on occasion and that's accepted with a wink and a smile, But when the Koreans do it to 'their' women the fingers start waving in indignation.

[The Marmot]

I wonder if the anger expressed in the blogosphere would be so intense if the show hadn't aired that incident.

Frankly, no. Most of the anger---from what I can gather---has been directed at the racism of the particular incident rather than the arguably sexist nature of the whole show. Personally, I find the show---a panel of five men oggling hot foreign babes---somewhat hypocritical given the kind of reaction similar interaction between Korean females and non-Korean men seems to evoke from much of the public. But do I have problems with Korean males oggling "my [i.e. white] women," per se? Nope. If Korean bloggers want to post photos of my well-endowed melanin deficient sisters (and MANY do), more power to them... just as long as they link the source and are sure to include photos of Monica Bellucci, whom no self-respection collection of naked white babes would be without. As a fellow male who, ahem, on occassion enjoys images of aesthetically pleasing females of all hues sans obstructive clothing, I'm hardly in a position to complain...

[The Metropolitician]

Yeah – it's about context.

The Korean media jumping at even the slightest whiff of the faintest hint of a true "sex scandal" involving the much-misrepresented image of the "sex fiend English teacher" is what makes this funny, given the clear and obvious sexual ogling of Korean men based on simplistic sexual stereotypes, e.g. North Korean cheerleaders, "loose" Russian "entertainers", and lascivious lasses of all other nationalities.

This, despite the fact that the disproportionately high number of weird people who teach English here is 1) much lower than say 10 years ago, when I was really worried myself about the extremely weird characters I'd bump into, and 2) actually has never involved a scandal with underage girls or their own students (yet – crossing self).

The Korean Teachers Union still condemns foreigners as having "low sexual morals" despite the constant scandals that keep coming out in Korean schools involving Korean teachers who serially rape middle school students in noraebangs, or even run sex rings in universities. This, despite me personally – and through other foreign eyes inside all kinds of institutions within the Korean schools, especially my Fulbright ETA peers – have witnessed or heard first-hand accounts of Korean teachers regularly verbally harassing, fondling, and even fucking their own students.

And I use that vulgar term strategically here, because the idea of banging a student – especially in exchange for a favor or grade – is vomitous to me, no matter the fact of what I do with consenting adults in a drunken stupor in Itaewon.

Yeah, we foreigners may have "low sexual morals" (I'm being facetious here, obviously, given the thousands of "love hotels" that dot the Korean landscape that don't even like to rent to foreigners because they charge by the hour on weekends), but at least we keep it to other consenting adults, not middle school kids.

This is the culture of "wonjo kyojae" and movies involving sexual interest in student minors ("Uerini Shinbu") and the KTU is pointing the finger at the small sprinkling of foriegn men who generally keep their freaking confined to a few party districts or the local "foreigner bar?"

How about the KTU and the Korean media do exposés on the high school in which my friend personally witnessed high school girls going to drink soju with male teachers in their hotel rooms at night on a school field trip. She reported it to the principal and was told to "calm down" and "you don't understand Korean culture."

What does the KTU have to say about that? Where's the scandal ous reporting?

Grrrrr.

End Rant.

[The Marmot]

Well, I don't really want to go to bat for the KTU, but in do fairness to the union, this incident is something I seriously doubt they'd view positively. If they had to make a statement, I'd imagine it would look something like the one Cultural Solidarity made last night:

http://news.naver.com/news/read.php?mode=LSD&office_id=098&article_id=0000192310§ion_id=117&menu_id=117

For all of the KTU's faults---and there are many---defending sexism and racism* aren't among them.

*OK, the statement the Gyeonggi-do office released about the English Villages being the major exception, although if I might add an ultimately meaningless qualifier here, I don't believe the statement was motivated by the union's inherent racism as much as it was the desire to cynically use the public's stereotypes and sexual insecurities to launch a political attack on then Gyeonggi-do governor Sohn Hak-kyu (who regarded the English Villages as a pet project).

[Mark]

It sucks to be a human on the Planet of the K-Apes.

[Kevin Landry]

where the petition at?

[stef]

I suppose what irks me is that a lot of the arguements I've read on the issue seem to center upon, well if we were to something not as bad as that then Korean media would be all over us and calling for our mass deportation. Rather than it's wrong to treat women as baseball trading cards white girl, asian girl, black girl.

I still find the show offensive which is why I signed the petition, as it just reinforces a lot of Korean sterotypes about foreign women. But judging by some of the comments I've read online about women by male posters and I do hope the next time the males who got upset about this incident might think twice about sexualising women on the basis of race in a public forum.

That's not to say that I think that males should stop oggling females. I love turning a guys head as much as the next girl and have an unhealthy obessesion with Daniel Henney. But there are times and places for such things, national TV not cool. But occasionally I think people forget that women read blogs too and perhaps some of the comments there could be toned down at times.

[mersault miller]

while I generally agree with all of this, I just have to make the comment that I found the show an eye opener in one other (positive) respect. having been here not very long, this was my first exposure to non-Koreans interacting with Koreans using decent Korean! I think the women that participated in this show have to be given a lot of credit for swallowing their pride and 'normalising' in the Korean zeitgeist the idea of foreigners speaking Korean - even though it may not be the most lofty forum for this idea to come across. In this way perhaps some Koreans will feel more comfortable speaking with foreigners in Korean?

could this show not be a forum for some great things depending on the calibre of the participants. (I would love to see a fluent Westerner sparring with one of those guys on the panel).

[Jinnie Kay]

I think we all (or at least many) have known about this interesting phemonenon and perspective. It's just that we don't say it. Thanks for the enlightening story!

[Yankabroad]

No. They prefer White People. Such as Myself.

But. They don't hang the black people from trees until their bodies rot and stink like strange fruit.

Never did, never will.

RR

[Yankabroad]

Sweetheart:

Don't make no difference what color you are. If you speak Korean, they will love you.

Few Westerners can.

[Get a grip]

This is just too funny.

I've just seen the video of controversy. There's nothing wrong with it. If there is something wrong with it, then there is something wrong with hundreds of tv programs across the world.

Seriously, everyone should go back and protest Jerry Springer or the Washington Redskins or the typical Asian stereotypes in western culture.

I'm Korean. I live in Korea. I'm still a foreigner living in a foreign world and I accept that.

Do you believe your bullying will get all of Korea to suddenly turn to your opinion because your feelings are hurt? This isn't the US where you can cry over every little injustice and grind the country to a halt with petty rants.

This will not hit the newscycle 24 hours a day. Because most Koreans do not care that your feelings were hurt.

Go protest the Simpsons for their portrayal of Abu the Indian.

Don't you get it? You'll never win. Because it is a ridiculous argument. You are living in a foreigner's land. You are not the majority. In fact, you are not even one sliver of 1% of the population. And as no crimes against humanity were committed, you must accept your lot in life and move on.

Or you could continue to rabble rouse and complain and bitch to increase your viewership by all the narrow-minded people who happen to agree with your ethnocentric viewpoint.

Oh and you know what. It's comedy. Haha. So what are you railing against?

Do you think most modern Koreans will look at a black person and spit in their face? On the contrary, I'd guess Korea is actually more tolerant than many parts of the US.

So please stop complaining and write about real issues. Oh that would be boring.

[The Metropolitician]

So - just bend over and take it, and shut the fuck up?

I think the fact that you can't even sign your real name to your beliefs speaks a lot about what you say, what you believe, and your worldview.

I don't choose to live a coward. You do. I guess that will just have to be that, since we're different types of people.

And by the way, the rabblerousers in America who were not even citizens or were new immigrants, in any case, the people who were on the outside looking in – these were the people who have made the world a better place in every culture, not the people who sat by and watched things that were wrong, swallowed injustice, and even participated in it.

I side with the people on that side of the fence. You side with the "realists" who just want to take what they can get, keep quiet and don't rock the boat, who see injustice every day and shrug their shoulders and think, "What can I do, anyway?"

That's the kind of person you are. I'm not like you.

So - since no one's twisting your arm to read this little blog, why don't you leave the useless "sliver of 1%" to our little activity and go do something really, really useful to society and go watch more TV.

Lemming.

[eric]

korea is fucked up in many ways. no question about it. and this situation should be remedied...

but let's be careful before we get too high on our high horses about how much more moral and advanced the "west"/U.S. really is.

after all, we're talking about a country that still has "mr. chews asian beaver" "oriental pussy," and "ASIAN," "LATIN," and "BLACK" as some of the most popular porn genres out there.

so yeah, it's less on the radar, but all still there.

let's not start actually believing the u.s. is all THAT MUCH more enlightened on the subject. besides, we have a much longer history of integretation, fighting, and tolerance when it comes to notions of plurality. like it or not, koreans believe in the notion of "one blood, one race" almost as adamently as most americans believe we're all one nationality of "americans."

korea and the "west." same, just a matter of more raw v. more slick. overt v. covert.

[The Metropolitician]

Well, I never compared Korea to the West, or America, as the point of my criticism. I'm pointing out the fact that KOREA has supposedly committed itself to the ideals of democracy, globalization, and becoming a part of the world community, a role that it very much wants the rest of the world to see Korea as.

And on top of that, Korean media and its citizens point out the most minor of perceived slights against "Korea" even as it dishes out some of the most ignorant stuff one can imagine.

That's the point I'm making. If theis were 19th-century Indochina, yes, this anger would be ill-placed, since we wouldn't even be in the same framework. But I think the majority of this anger comes from not just the acts of ignorance themselves, but the hypocrisy that is indicated by glib reactions of "well, we're sorry you're offended" or "it was just meant to be funny" or "go back to your own country, then!" – all answers Koreans have found unacceptable (and rightly) so when Koreans are on the receiving end of stupidity and discrimination.

I'm just basically saying to do as you demand, in terms of treatment and basic respect from other countries.

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