SEOUL — On the evening of July 10, Bonogit Hussain, a 29-year-old Indian man, and Hahn Ji-seon, a female Korean friend, were riding a bus near Seoul when a man in the back began hurling racial and sexist slurs at them.

The situation would be a familiar one to many Korean women who have dated or even — as in Ms. Hahn’s case — simply traveled in the company of a foreign man.

What was different this time, however, was that, once it was reported in the South Korean media, prosecutors sprang into action, charging the man they have identified only as a 31-year-old Mr. Park with contempt, the first time such charges had been applied to an alleged racist offense. Spurred by the case, which is pending in court, rival political parties in Parliament have begun drafting legislation that for the first time would provide a detailed definition of discrimination by race and ethnicity and impose criminal penalties.

For Mr. Hussain, subtle discrimination has been part of daily life for the two and half years he has lived here as a student and then research professor at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul. He says that, even in crowded subways, people tend not sit next to him. In June, he said, he fell asleep on a bus and when it reached the terminal, the driver woke him up by poking him in the thigh with his foot, an extremely offensive gesture in South Korea.

“Things got worse for me this time, because I was with a Korean woman,” Mr. Hussain said in an interview. “Whenever I’ve walked with Ms. Hahn or other Korean women, most of the time I felt hostilities, especially from middle-aged men.”

South Korea, a country where until recently people were taught to take pride in their nation’s “ethnic homogeneity” and where the words “skin color” and “peach” are synonymous, is struggling to embrace a new reality. In just the past seven years, the number of foreign residents has doubled, to 1.2 million, even as the country’s population of 48.7 million is expected to drop sharply in coming decades because of its low birth rate.

Many of the foreigners come here to toil at sea or on farms or in factories, providing cheap labor in jobs shunned by South Koreans. Southeast Asian women marry rural farmers who cannot find South Korean brides. People from English-speaking countries find jobs teaching English in a society obsessed with learning the language from native speakers.

For most South Koreans, globalization has largely meant increasing exports or going abroad to study. But now that it is also bringing an influx of foreigners into a society where 42 percent of respondents in a 2008 survey said they had never once spoken with a foreigner, South Koreans are learning to adjust — often uncomfortably.

In a report issued Oct. 21, Amnesty International criticized discrimination in South Korea against migrant workers, who mostly are from poor Asian countries, citing sexual abuse, racial slurs, inadequate safety training and the mandatory disclosure of H.I.V. status, a requirement not imposed on South Koreans in the same jobs. Citing local news media and rights advocates, it said that following last year’s financial downturn, “incidents of xenophobia are on the rise.”

Ms. Hahn said, “Even a friend of mine confided to me that when he sees a Korean woman walking with a foreign man, he feels as if his own mother betrayed him.”

In South Korea, a country repeatedly invaded and subjugated by its bigger neighbors, people’s racial outlooks have been colored by “pure-blood” nationalism as well as traditional patriarchal mores, said Seol Dong-hoon, a sociologist at Chonbuk National University.

Centuries ago, when Korean women who had been taken to China as war prizes and forced into sexual slavery managed to return home, their communities ostracized them as tainted. In the last century, Korean “comfort women,” who worked as sex slaves for the Japanese Imperial Army, faced a similar stigma. Later, women who sold sex to American G.I.’s in the years following the 1950-53 Korean War were despised even more. Their children were shunned as “twigi,” a term once reserved for animal hybrids, said Bae Gee-cheol, 53, whose mother was expelled from her family after she gave birth to him following her rape by an American soldier.

Even today, the North Korean authorities often force abortion on women who return home pregnant after going to China to find food, according to defectors and human rights groups.
“When I travel with my husband, we avoid buses and subways,” said Jung Hye-sil, 42, who married a Pakistani man in 1994. “They glance at me as if I have done something incredible. There is a tendency here to control women and who they can date or marry, in the name of the nation.”
Related
Times Topics: South Korea

For many Koreans, the first encounter with non-Asians came during the Korean War, when American troops fought on the South Korean side. That experience has complicated South Koreans’ racial perceptions, Mr. Seol said. Today, the mix of envy and loathing of the West, especially of white Americans, is apparent in daily life.

The government and media obsess over each new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, to see how the country ranks against other developed economies. A hugely popular television program is “Chit Chat of Beautiful Ladies” — a show where young, attractive, mostly Caucasian women who are fluent in Korean discuss South Korea. Yet, when South Koreans refer to Americans in private conversations, they nearly always attach the same suffix as when they talk about the Japanese and Chinese, their historical masters: “nom,” which means “bastards.” Tammy Chu, 34, a Korean-born film director who was adopted by Americans and grew up in New York State, said she had been “scolded and yelled at” in Seoul subways for speaking in English and thus “not being Korean enough.” Then, she said, her applications for a job as an English teacher were rejected on the grounds that she was “not white enough.”

Ms. Hahn said that after the incident in the bus last July, her family was “turned upside down.” Her father and other relatives grilled her as to whether she was dating Mr. Hussain. But when a cousin recently married a German, “all my relatives envied her, as if her marriage was a boon to our family,” she said.

The Foreign Ministry supports an anti-discrimination law, said Kim Se-won, a ministry official. In 2007, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended that South Korea adopt such a law, deploring the widespread use of terms like “pure blood” and “mixed blood.” It urged public education to overcome the notion that South Korea was “ethnically homogenous,” which, it said, “no longer corresponds to the actual situation.”

But a recent forum to discuss proposed legislation against racial discrimination turned into a shouting match when several critics who had networked through the Internet showed up. They charged that such a law would only encourage even more migrant workers to come to South Korea, pushing native workers out of jobs and creating crime-infested slums. They also said it was too difficult to define what was racially or culturally offensive.

“Our ethnic homogeneity is a blessing,” said one of the critics, Lee Sung-bok, a bricklayer who said his job was threatened by migrant workers. “If they keep flooding in, who can guarantee our country won’t be torn apart by ethnic war as in Sri Lanka?”

when it comes to american media, they tend to skew reality just like any other country.

i've been at the airport in raleigh, nc and been treated with racism and discrimination that is pretty apalling. i remember going up to an employee to ask a question and he gave me dirty dismissive look and said, "what do you want?" very rudely. i also recall trying to get assistance when three african american employees were gabbing together and you could tell there was some racist subtext to their reaction of wanting to assist as they tried to stall and get someone else to do it. they also were speaking very loudly as if i couldn't understand english and snickering.

racism is not just in south korea nor is it not exist in america because it labels itself the "melting pot" or mulitcultural. reality and how humans are and labels are two different entities.

in america, the difference in prejudice is sometimes regional as their are different groups of predominant minorities in certain areas which diffuse some or most of it. for instance, hawaii is mostly asian and california also has many minorities. the south has large african-american population so is less racist (believe it or not) toward blacks and some parts of northeast, the soutwest has a large hispanic population and hispanics are comfortable there etc. but anyone veering from places that don't have a larger representative of their minority demographic will be more predisposed to racism or prejudice.

to say that "south korea struggles with racism" as if others don't is pretty skewed. also, asians in american media are the most debased and asians in america are actually the most discriminated socially and culturally. in american media, they love to portray asians with demeaning stereotypes.

the article to some extent is the pot calling the kettle black.

also, you will notice a subtle(?) difference in how asians are portrayed in american media and asian media. there are few wholesome, normal people cast as asians. even in advertising you do not see asian models or they are usually made to look extreme with dark makeup (reminiscent of whores) or caricaturized etc. even the new melrose place has cast an asian student making ends meet by being a prostitute. before, in desperate housewife asians were cast as whores/maids etc. very few positive portrayals of asians.

asians have their own culture and continent though, shouldn't expect too much from america and take their criticisms or assessment of others with a grain of salt. they have plenty of their own biases. i strongly feel it's best that asian-americans look to asia for thier identity rather than american culture which is primarily negative towards them. america is NOT friendly toward asians for the most part. let america pay for it and they are, believe it or not both culturally and otherwise. some can figure this out but most won't be able to read between the lines.

^this

Are people really that unable to talk about racism in Korea without having to bring up America?

Why not just discuss racism in Korea for what it is?

In reality Korea is one of the most racist countries in the world.

There is a huge difference between racism and xenophobic. Koreans don't hate colored people, most of koreans just don't know how to deal with them.

i dont understand why the government gives visas to indians and pakistanis?

i can understand people from asean but people from india and pakistan would obviously have a hard time in korea because of the language barrier and looks.

the problem is that both japan and korea are filled to the brim. they cannot accomodate more people. yet the government is giving visas to other people?

doing business is fine but why call more people into the country when it is already packed?
i saw the program chat with beauties, it felt strange. kinda like talking with different girls on national tv for the self esteem of the nation?

neverthless this is disappointing

this post shows good discernment. i would agree that americans are far more "racist" than koreans who are rather xenophobic. actually, for the most part it's best for korea but some immigration should be allowed but not too much. that goes for most countries except america.

Do you know much about demographics?

Gotta' ask; how do you know what all koreans think?

I'm sure a certain percentage 'hate' certain people.

lol koreans think they are new aryans or something.

one of the most stupid comments i've ever read.

I don't think Koreans or asians in general are really racist (a few guys don't represent the whole). But I do know that Koreans and Asians feel threatened in a way when they see interracial marriage etc etc. They're threatened of losing their identity and culture. Why fight wars for thousands of years when you can just let the enemy in and be assimilated?

It's funny how in the western world they teach you to embrace diversity yet their way of embracing diversity actually kills it. Their way is simply integrating all ethnicities into one and voila instead of diversity, there will be no more diversity.

The Koreans I've met are very proud of being Korean. They're not racist at all, we hang around as usual except they usually prefer or only date other Koreans. I don't see that as being racist. They're just proud of their culture/people.

We have America for all that "diversity", save Korea and other countries their homogeneity so that in the future we can still travel and find things exciting.

that is exactly what i said indians and pakistanis should not go to east asia. people from asean will have a better time assimilating in korea unlike indians and pakistanis who would have a really hard time. doing business in fine but why the need to go to east asia?

india, japan, korea, asean are doing good business and hopefully business with china will also be good in the future.
but that does not mean that indians have to physically go to korea

the better question is why is the government giving out visas when there are a lot more north koreans who could be using that help??

personally i have never seen any indian guy with an east asian girl or east asian guy with an indian girl. for that matter i have never seen an indian guy or girl with any other ethnicity. if you look up the interracial stats indians have the lowest interracial marriage rate of any group. i think the guy mentioned in the article was probably going on an office matter with the korean lady.

Don't talk about Aryan race crap here.
You'll be reported for being ignorant.


Koreans are generally not racist, if they were then there wouldn't be 1 million foreigners in Seoul.
However, Koreans do tends to stereotype people, and this is the problem but hopefully will change.

Indians are practically target of racism simply because of their color skin, curry smells and India as country is not being perceive as well off country.

In Korea, all you get is verbal racism. It's perfectly safe for foreigners unlike other countries where they even have racist political party and race hate groups.

Um... because, those North Koreans can't come to the South?!??!



What stats? In Korea? You have interracial stats on how many Indians marry in Korea?

Are u serious??? How many Koreans live in the USA? If it was reversed and Americans said why the government would allow Koreans to enter cuz of their looks and language barrier I bet u would be the first to call them racists.

I have never heard of this

True. Aside from the earlier implication that is America's duty to handle diversity for the world, none of you have ever been white in Los Angeles' K-Town have you?

Whether its xenophobia, racism or nationalism discriminating against and mistreating others because of what type of person you THINK they are because of their looks is wrong. And I have seen and experienced all three of those excuses for being uncivil to others in several countries - not just the U.S. There really isn't any difference when you are on the receiving end, so that label only matters if you are trying to cure it.

America is a land of immigration, and has been for tens of thousands of years.

Korea is a tiny piece of land and is not a country based on immigration.

Korea is most similiar to Ireland in its immigration policy. Ireland is 99% Irish. Korea is 99% Korean.

Not according to recent stats

Is Hmong"Miao" Korean too?

Ethnicity wise.

A large percentage of the foreign passports in Ireland are actually Irish Americans. So ethnically wise Ireland is 99% Irish.

Either way, Korea is best off emulating immigration policy of non- colonist European countries. Such as Ireland.

Countries like Germany and Britain have to have favorable immigration policies towards former colonies. Thats why being an imperialist carries long term repercussions.

However, Korea was never imperialist, so Korea's immigration policy should be more similiar to non imperialist European countries like Ireland.

Both North and South Koreas together, there are 99% of Korean ethnicity.
Even with now 1 million foreigners in South Korea, main demography of South Korea will remain 99% Korean ethnic.

May be in future, this figure will drop down to 98~97%?

You must know, large numbers of Chinese/Japanese/American passport holders in South Korea are mainly Korean ethnic.

Historically speaking, Koreans and Vietnamese are peace-loving and non-agressive people who have been suffered from their big bully neighbours for centuries.

So their "racism" is more defensive, of cause every racism is wrong, but Koreans' racism is sort like the scotish racism or irish racism, it come from a defensive mechanism.

We vietnamese has similiar kind of "racism" or, more correctly, overly-defensive against foreigners from 1950s to 1970s, only after the reunification, we become more confident about ourselves and let the past just go away.

I am not trying to make excuse for them, but we know their "racism" is quite different and much less harmful than the more aggressive type of "racism".

German colonies?

There were former German Colonies before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_German_colonies

One of them were in China.

These are German concessions in China leased to it by the Qing Dynasty.

* Jiaozhou Bay (Deutsch-Kiautschou) (1898-1914)
* Chefoo (190?-1918)

c'mon ...it's the NY times....friggin annual asian bashing with those guys.......until i see koreans with whacky hooded get-ups burning crosses etc and gangs of skinhead korean thugs beating and murdering foreigners.....i don't see any race problem in korea....

Out of all those people who are against immigration in this thread - do any of you know the forecasts for Korea's population trends over the next 50 years?




Are you even in Korea?

Just because YOU don't see a problem, does not mean one does not exist.

organizations like Amnesty international need to die, they were born with good intentions but their current members/direction is little more then liberal zealots who want to force their views of the world upon everyone else. It's why my parents stopped donating to them.

what problem?.....every goddamn country in the world have racists.........that's just the way it is...

Heh, after reading that, I just can't help but be reminded of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptyzc4BQliY

Something is seriously wrong with the NY Times when a drunk Korean man who yells at a foreigner on a bus makes headline news.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cho

This is much more worthy of making headlines in the NY Times. Michael Cho DIED with TEN SHOTS TO HIS BODY AS HE WAS WALKING AWAY FROM THE POLICE. Does this ever happen to ESL Teachers?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJRFvI-KsUM

Good thing the Korean news got a hold of the surveilance tape, or else it would have never been released by the La Habra police after they confiscated it.

This incident was definitely not reported in the NY Times. But some drunk Korean ajusshi yells at someone on a bus halfway across the world. Oh hellz no. NY Times all over that.

considering the circumstances, i would say that it's basically murder what they did to him. a police officer is supposed to assess level of threat and act accordingly. he had a tire iron, was walking away, was not running towards them and still one or two shots max to disable (not aiming at major organs etc) the person is all that's needed.

the truth is a lot of police officers are also racist, you can't prove it one way or another either. when situations like this arise, they can use it as an excuse to kill.

stop comparing korea to other countries like the ones in europe and southeast asia
it makes you look lame, to us, especially when your not even korean
would you like it if i constnantly compared france to vietnam, hanoi to paris
then again you probably would

Back to the topic.

Unlike the Western media, I DO believe that ethnic homogenity is one of Korea's greatest assets. Where would Korea be today without the dedicated, hard working Koreans of the 60s and the 70s who sought for national prosperity and a better future for their children?

Look at Korea today. Every step we take to better accomodate foreigners will be a step we take towards making Korea a multicultural cesspit. More and more third world foreigners are immigration to Korea every passing day. This is a trend that must stop. If it doesn't, these people will be the Korean equivalent of the Mexican illegals in the United States: sufficient in population, they will be demonstrating for more affirmative action rights and starting "discrimination" lawcases, all while leaching off the healthcare and education system and refusing to assimiliate into the Korean population.

If immigration doesn't stop, then it will be the death knell of Korean culture as we know it.

I think thats the wrong analogy. Mexicans have direct ancestors that used to live in the Southwest United States, America is a big country, and is founded on immigration for 10's of thousands of years.

Most of these illegals in Korea are temporary and are just going back to their own country in due time. Korea is the second most densely populated country in the world. There's no space for mass immigration anyways. The only way for Korea to have more resources right now is unification. Otherwise, Korea's crowded, lack of resources, limited land mass is in no shape for mass immigration policies.

I don't have a problem with people discussing politics and immigration on that level. But I also don't see how this has anything to do with speaking about incidents like these on an individual level.

Are you concerned that mass immigration will dilute Korean culture? Fine, let's have a policy debate and then in the future the politicians will consider implementing policies which discourage it. To be honest I agree that there is a difference between immigration nations like America, New Zealand, and Australia, compared to ones like Korea.

But that doesn't have anything to do with disrespecting the rights of a foreigner, a research professor for a Korean nonetheless, merely for who he is. It's one thing to say you disagree with immigration, and another to target individuals. If this was an illegal immigrant who violates the law to go to Korea that would be different, but he is a legal foreigner who went through the legal Korean process to work there. It isn't his fault that you don't like the fact that the government has those laws.

And yet, foreign immigration to Korea continues to rise. And these aren't just temporary guest workers, these are immigrants who come to stay permanently, such as many Filipinos who work in low end jobs while sending most of their income as remittances back to their families. Now how does that help Korea?

I think Filipinos with permanent residency in Korea is around 6 thousand. Most of the permanent residencies are probably there for marriage purposes.

NY Times used to be a good publication. But their standards for what is considered news is clearly biased, and it shows in its rising prices and falling subscribership. NY Times posted a loss of $35.6 Million this quarter.

Their revenues would clearly rise if they wrote more about Korean reunification and the death of Michael Cho. =D

majority of filos who work in korea r english teachers..they r only their temporarily...probably a year or 2 years tops
they r just a speck considering how many other foreigners there r

In fact there is more then double the amount of Koreans in the Philippines

Korea suffers from illegal immigration because of a lack of space. The U.S. suffers from illegal immigration because of the economics, when our social systems have to support them. The solution in both cases is better and stricter enforcement of existing immigration laws, and passing new ones if the current ones don't handle the problem well enough.

As for justifying immigration by citing declining birth rate, it is like filling a leaking bucket faster rather than repairing the leak. Rising population density is a known factor in the decline of fertility rates and escalation of infant mortality. Bringing more people will only exacerbate the problem.

Immigration (both legal and illegal) today typically occurs as a result of economic opportunities. The longer you work in a country, the more likely you are to settle in it. For a country like Korea, which needs a significant foreign business presence in order to prosper (just like Japan and China), stopping immigration altogether is not viable. Furthermore, if it is indeed the case that Koreans do not want to fill lower level jobs, then economic necessities dictate that the country must take foreign workers to fill its needs.

As most people here are likely immigrants to Western countries, the concept of reciprocity must also be considered. True, America, Canada, etc. are "immigrant nations" (ex-colonies). But that does not mean there's a lack of "natives," and I don't just mean Native Americans. This is because "native" status is really more of a continuum than a binary classification. The longer you stay in a region, the more "native" you become. To this end, if Koreans (and Chinese) want to continue immigrating to Western countries, then they should be prepared to reciprocate when economic conditions are similar.

As an Irish person living in Korea for the past 2 years or so I find this very Interesting. I have noticed certain aspects of Korean and Irish attitudes towards race issues are similar, but neither of them are pretty. It is true that immigration to both countries is a recent phenomenon, but in my opinion both need to grow up fast. A few years back there was a media panic about Eastern European people being dangerous drivers causing more than their fair share of deaths despite statistics suggesting otherwise. In a nutshell Baseless presumtions about foreigners in the media (sound familiar?). Being a certain type of foreigner in both countries can be quite difficult, although violent confrontations are rather rare in both cases.

(And to whoever said that the foreign population in Ireland is 1%, it's far higher, perhaps 10% and rising)

There's also a certain degree of post colonial self pity in both Ireland and Korea (something I despise about my native country). Poor little me syndrome gets pretty boring given that both countries have had wildly successful economies over the past decade and a half. If you want to have a successful economy, foreigners are going to want to live in the country, it's as simple as that. And given Korea's birthrate (or lack thereof) you should consider immigration a desireable phenomenon. Aren't most foreigners in K land mostly transient construction workers and the like anyway? no need to hit the panic button quite yet.

By the way, this message is brought to you by a waeguk saram that actually loves living here and is busting my @$$ with my Hangul mal presently! And I will qualify the above post by saying that the vast majority of Koreans are super welcoming, but every few months or so you'll get a weird moment on the subway where some dude will mutter expletives about the Westie thinking you dont understand. I woudn't put me off living here but it gets me down sometimes.

I agreed with your comments.

1. In terms of economically, immigrants (both legal & illegals) are in same water as these immigrants in U.S, Canada, Australia etc..

2. In terms of racially, situation in Korea is greatly different from U.S, Canada, Australia, and even China and Japan.

And here is why:

a) Korea's demography is 99% Korean ethnic, Koreans are native of Korea as well as Korea is mono-culture, speak one language.
b) Korea did not colonized foreign lands nor it did invaded & attacked foreigners.
c) Koreans believes all foreign visitors must behave accordingly and for these wanted to settle in Korea must assimilate into Korean.
d) Korea is not net migrant intake country, government have no plan for immigration.
e) South Koreans welcome North Koreans and overseas Koreans, as well as mixed Koreans.

Also, there are approx. 6 million Koreans in foreign countries, mostly in U.S, China, Japan, Central Asia, Russia, Australia, Canada, SE Asia etc..
This figure is much bigger if we includes all these mixed Koreans, we now starting see many mixed & ethnic Koreans coming back to Korea.

Population growth is really not big problem for Korea, but because of low birthrate and aging population is on increase, South Korean government is planning how they can increase the birth rate, the current foreign immigrants are mostly temporary stayers for economic purpose others are these married to Koreans.

Korean peninsula is not big enough to take new immigrants, it can sustain upto 80million at most for unified Korea, anything above that won't be good for Korea.
60 years ago, entire Korean population was only about 24millions.

I think that immigration is part of a UN global initiative to integrate all countries of the world as multi-cultural societies. I mean, look at Sweden, England, USA, France, Germany. It's only going to be reasonable to assume that countries with good economies in Asia will allow foreigners to take refuge from either war-torn regions or import highly or lower skilled workers.

Either way the level of skilled workers emmigrate to Korea, will probably mean more ethnic strife between clans or even religions.


Everyone had really good points on this thread, I've listened carefully to the points made here.

Places like africa, central asia , balkans, south east asia, latin america has almost never much history of successful cultures or pasts. Plus they have a very high birthrate, you let a few of them get it then it sends a message that you can go without permission and not be punished, once they flood into countries with successful economies they will ruin everything . Multiculturalism is used by those with white guilt for their imperialist crimes, Asia didn't colonize africa or america so i hope koreans aren't stupid to let liberalism take hold.

It made headlines in every newspaper in Korea, too.

There's much more important things for the NY Times to cover.

Or maybe the NY Times will cover "Korea is First in the World to Make Nanochips" articles too???

LOL

How about "Foreign Pedophiles Face Permanent Deportation?"

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/natio.../117_54081.html

Heck. The NY Times should definitely print that one.