Racism?

A funny thing happened the other day. It wasn't funny in the way that makes you laugh, but funny in the way that makes you think about things you didn't really before. A group of ten guys had gotten together to play poker, mostly English teachers, with our friend Jeff/Hyun Joon who's Korean, there as well. (His name is Hyun Joon, but he will often go by Jeff, as English speakers have trouble with his Korean name). During the course of the game, everyone was having some drinks, talking about the latest happenings at their school (most of which involved something unusual or challenging for them), "shooting the breeze" would be a good expression for it. One of the guys, during a rather animated tirade finished his comments with "I hate all Koreans". And suddenly he and everyone else remembered that Hyun Joon was sitting in the room playing with us.

Hyun Joon and I left pretty soon after (we were both out of the game quite early), and on our walk to meet the other friends who were out that night, he was noticeably upset by the comment. During our walk, I didn't know whether to try and justify it or condemn it, but I realized that little things like that happen all the time with English teachers here, though usually they're a little more subtle and not mentioned in front of any Koreans. Of course, no one hates all Koreans, at least not any of the people I would consider friends of mine. Occasionally there will be someone who will arouse enough ire within you to be able to honestly say you dislike them (maybe even hate them), but it's no more common here than it is with people you meet at home. Yet every time something unexpected and/or unpleasant happens, it so much easier to generalize the whole country as being that way. "They washed the floor with kerosene today - silly Koreans." "My school doesn't want me leaving the country for my days off - what are the Koreans thinking?" "I heard a girl got attacked by a Korean a few nights ago..." Well, this stuff happens at home too, but you never say to anyone, "Geez, Canadians are complete idiots, I can't stand them."

For most people here, I think it comes down to their inability to relate to anyone local. Language barriers are huge, and even when someone is fluent in English, it's still a challenge to really understand what kind of person they are and see the softer, underlying differences that make them an individual rather than another piece of the mass Korean collective. I've only met one person so far from Korea who has the fluency to communicate clearly and accurately everything she wants to say, and I'm amazed at how differently I see her compared to the rest of the people I meet here.

So does this make us all racists? For some English teachers here, their only interactions with Korean people are at their school, and maybe a little with the store workers they see and do business with. That's a very limited array of people to judge a culture on, but if that's all you have, and none of them are very nice to you, what do you do? If for 12 months your school treats you terribly, and you never really meet any other Koreans outside your job, it's tough to keep a positive attitude towards the rest of the country. On the other hand, it's way to common to see teachers here label the entire country as ignorant and incompetent when a single person lets them down (and probably only due to some error in communication).

Living at home in Canada, I remember seeing all social events for every possible ethnic group you could imagine - parties, study groups, political advocacy groups, even just drinking buddies. I didn't think much of it then, but I understand a lot more now why there was that tighter bond between all these people from another country living in a foreign land, and I can almost guarantee they suffer the same weirdness with Canadian culture and rant about "stupid" or "silly" Canadian people. So does that make them racists? When the incident at poker first happened, I wanted Hyun Joon to understand and feel better about what had just gone on, but I think now that I shouldn't have tried at all to play down the situation. To say "I hate Koreans" in any context or environment is poor way to express what you're feeling, and is not the way anyone should treat a person, a country or the people in it, and I hope to set a better example than that the next time I'm out with Canadians or Koreans.