Whatever. Here's a comment I wrote on Korea Beat in response to their link to an article on Korea's next "hub" idea:
English villages and schools for foreigners. Yawn. Oh, and special taxis that treat foreigners like lepers. Yeeah.
How about letting me use the Internet without a Korean citizen’s number? Or a media that is positively hostile to foreign bodies and the idea that making a profit in Korea is anything but a crime against the Korean people?
Because if it’s just English-friendly service people and some schools, I say go to another Asian country that does it better.
Simply another case of Korea wanting to be a hub just because it says it wants to be a hub, not by actually doing anything substantial to welcome foreign people or ideas.
In the end, Korea hasn’t finished its internal conversation about what it wants and why. It essentially does NOT want foreigners here, except to teach English or give Korean companies capital.
That’s IT.
Foreign ideas and even people are not welcome unless one of those two conditions are being met. Otherwise, foreigner people and ideas are constantly vilified in the media, and are seen as even more suspiciously than ever before.
Actions speak louder than words, and that’s the pattern Korea has showed in recent years. Xenophobia and increasingly rigid and racist thinking about foreigners.
Actually, it was better, in some ways, back in the 80’s and 90’s. At least ideas about foreigners weren’t starting to be set in stone, and even if there was some “ism” — individuals weren’t being held as somehow responsible for their country, or the victims of verbal and physical harassment.
