The first one is a doozy. The lead singer of trendy/popular singing group 2PM is leaving the country. Apparently, he made a comment on a social networking site 4 years ago about not liking Korea. He is a Korean-American. He was born in America and came to Korea when he was in his young teens to start his entertainment career.
From the story:
'Jae-beom was the center of netizens’ outrage over comments about Korea that he made to a friend on the social networking site MySpace around 2005-2007. Jae-beom, who was then a trainee at JYP Entertainment, wrote: “Korea is gay. I hate Koreans. I wanna come back.” '
As usual, make a bad comment about Korea in any way, and they'll hate you. Oddly enough, my adoring fans haven't forced me out, and I've been saying stuff like that for the last six months.
Check out the story here.
Speaking of things that upset Koreans, the country's competitiveness ranking fell to 19th. The US is at a still-strong number 2.
From the story:
As usual, make a bad comment about Korea in any way, and they'll hate you. Oddly enough, my adoring fans haven't forced me out, and I've been saying stuff like that for the last six months.
Check out the story here.
Speaking of things that upset Koreans, the country's competitiveness ranking fell to 19th. The US is at a still-strong number 2.
From the story:
'In its Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010, the Geneva-based institute said Korea ranked 19th in competitiveness among 133 countries, down six places from 2008.'
If any Koreans see that, they'll be very unhappy, and probably blame the swine flu.
Check out the story here.
Last but not least is a significant editorial from Th Korea Times disparaging the racist attitude of the country. Last month, a drunken Korean man apparently called an Indian professor dirty and smelly.
From the article:
If any Koreans see that, they'll be very unhappy, and probably blame the swine flu.
Check out the story here.
Last but not least is a significant editorial from Th Korea Times disparaging the racist attitude of the country. Last month, a drunken Korean man apparently called an Indian professor dirty and smelly.
From the article:
'It is easy to brush aside the episode as momentary mischief by a drunken man, who allegedly called an Indian professor ``dirty" and ``smelly" in a bus late last month. It is not easy, however, to deny a deep-rooted sense of racism among us, particularly against black people coming from poorer countries.'
I joked about the first two articles, but this problem is very real in Korea. I've written about my own personal experiences a few times, and there are many stories of foreigners being harassed.
For example, we now have a male teacher at Jungchul. He got there about 3 weeks before I left. The other teachers and students called him the Korean term for "man teacher." But I was ALWAYS referred to as "foreigner teacher." Why? I'm a man, too. But instead of calling me "man teacher," I was simply the foreigner.
They didn't do it in a rude way, but it shows how deep their racism goes. It's perfectly acceptable just to label somebody as a foreigner, even though there are other ways to refer to them that would make them feel more accepted.
Check out the story here.
I joked about the first two articles, but this problem is very real in Korea. I've written about my own personal experiences a few times, and there are many stories of foreigners being harassed.
For example, we now have a male teacher at Jungchul. He got there about 3 weeks before I left. The other teachers and students called him the Korean term for "man teacher." But I was ALWAYS referred to as "foreigner teacher." Why? I'm a man, too. But instead of calling me "man teacher," I was simply the foreigner.
They didn't do it in a rude way, but it shows how deep their racism goes. It's perfectly acceptable just to label somebody as a foreigner, even though there are other ways to refer to them that would make them feel more accepted.
Check out the story here.
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