As Korean content goes global, cultural sensitivity becomes key issue

2020/08/12 Leave a comment

Of interest:

When students from Uijeongbu High School parodied Ghana’s famous dancing pallbearers, South Korea-based Ghanaian television personality Sam Okyere took to social media to criticize the students for painting their faces brown.

A few days later, Okyere apologized after people said it was inappropriate to post a photo of the students without permission. They also took exception to his use of the hashtag “#teakpop,” which is typically used in a derogatory way about K-pop.

Many Koreans criticized Okyere online, calling him overly sensitive and inconsiderate. However, Korean songs, dramas and TV programs have also faced allegations of racism this summer.

When K-pop group Mamamoo member Hwasa appeared in an online livestream of a spinoff of MBC’s “I Live Alone” on July 15, some global fans said the clothes the singer wore were racially offensive and that she was making fun of traditional Nigerian clothing.

“We received unfriendly messages concerning Hwasa’s clothes,” posted “I Live Alone” on its YouTube page July 25 after the controversy raged on the internet. “We want to clarify that the clothes, which Hwasa often wears, were inspired by (what is worn in a) Korean sauna.’ We had no intention of comically showing traditional clothing of certain countries.”
Last month, singer Zo Bin of Norazo apologized for his 2011 song “Curry” after K-pop group Seventeen sang the song on V Live on July 13. Seventeen fans, mostly from abroad, criticized the song for its lyrics associating love of curry with yoga, the Taj Mahal and not eating beef. They accused the band of stereotyping Indians and Indian culture.

“I just wanted to sing in a joyful way that curry is tasty in any way to everyone. I did not make the song with the intention to offend someone or diminish the culture and tradition of a country,” said Zo Bin on Instagram. “I apologize to all South Asians and people in India hurt by this.”

Korean dramas also couldn’t avoid allegations of racial discrimination.
Actor Ji Chang-wook of SBS’ “Backstreet Rookie” became mired in controversy when he uploaded a video on social media with another actor, SIC, wearing dreadlocks and performing a comical dance. Some international viewers accused the two actors of appropriating black culture and said their movements were racially offensive.

“Acceptance of multiculturalism and cultural sensitivity levels of many Koreans are very low,” said Yoon In-jin, a sociology professor at Korea University.

“We have lived as monoethnic people and in monoethnic culture for a long time, so we lack in understanding and respecting other cultures,” Yoon said. “We are insensitive as to how our actions can be seen by others. On the other hand, we react angrily if foreigners belittle Korean culture or people.”

In order to prevent racial discrimination controversies, many entertainment agencies educate their artists on racial and gender discrimination, and artists are banned from giving personal opinions on political, social and historical matters.

Furthermore, major K-pop idol agencies have manuals containing cultural taboos and politically sensitive topics in specific countries for artists to review when they go on world tours.

Some people defended Okyere, saying the criticism against him was two-faced. The hashtag “#I_Stand_with_Sam_Okyere” started trending Friday after Okyere apologized, and many international viewers expressed their disappointment with the attacks against him.

“Hallyu will eventually fall off if Koreans do not educate themselves on other cultures,” said one tweet.

“Through education and trial and error, we need to learn from these controversies and learn to think from the other person’s shoes,” said Yoon.

Source: As Korean content goes global, cultural sensitivity becomes key issue

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Korea: race, racism, and the ‘other’

2020/06/01 Leave a comment

Interesting take and important reminder of the historical and political background that underlies approaches to identity and civic integration. Readers more familiar with Korea may wish to comment:

Korea’s approach to multiculturalism is a paradox. The same multicultural policies and programs that have been enacted and encouraged by various administrations over the years have simultaneously reinforced racial and ethnic views vis-à-vis nationality and citizenship.

Multiculturalism often appears more akin to cultural assimilation. It means foreigners learning to eat kimchi, speaking Korean, wearing a hanbok, and going on television programs and acting surprised at things. Or, if you are like the vast majority of foreign nationals trying to acclimatize, it means learning how to be a good Korean wife and all the underlying Confucian conditions and requisites that come with it.

Despite what any government programs or officials might say, this not a melting pot – it’s a mold. If you fit, you can succeed…to a certain extent.

Here, Korean culture, race, ethnicity, citizenship, and nationality are virtually inseparable.

For example, it’s possible to be a white girl with blue eyes, have a Korean passport, live your life here and speak the language impeccably but never be thought of as “Korean”. Conversely, someone could be born and raised in the States, never visit the peninsula, not speak the language, but still be seen as “Korean”.

To understand how this works, you probably need to understand the concept of “minjok”.

“Min” represents people and “jok” represents family. Despite both these Chinese characters being in recorded use in the classical age, the term “minjok” was a modern construction in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, adopted by thinkers such as Shin Chae-ho in the country’s fight against imperialism.

Western (and later Japanese) imperial powers had begun planting their flags in Asia, seeking trade ports, military posts, and favorable conditions for further expansion, and thus a great competition arose for the most desirable locations. The Korean Peninsula found itself trapped in this game centered on the nation-state despite its pleas for isolation and the continuation of its own autonomous way of life.

For the creation of the nation-state as a political entity in Northeast Asia, as well as the generation of a national consciousness, 19th century political Korean activists sought to foster internal homogeneity and external autonomy. The concept of “minjok” provided such social cohesion: a category inclusive of every Korean without regard to age, gender, or status distinctions.

It was constructed by a collection of public intellectuals such as Shin Chaeho, Ahn Changho, and Park Eunsik. They were associated with the New People’s Association (shin-min-hoe) established in 1906 and focused on the independent strengthening of national power and promoting a more unified nationalist consciousness which did not just focus on a monarch or ruling elite class, such as the yangban.

Historical subjectivity was required. The story of the country could and should no longer be told by simply saying, “This king lived. Then he died. Then this king came along. Then he was murdered. Then there was the next king.”

A country’s history is more than the life, times, inbreeding, and corruption of a series of monarchs. It contains an entire population. Millions of lives, dreams, hopes, fears, stories, tales, music, arts, and more.

The minjok helped provide subjectivity to the people – it took the tale of Korea away from the kings and gave it to the people. A similar thing would happen here in the 1970s with the “minjung” movment.

Thus, the Korean people (all 76-odd million of them) see themselves as a family: Joined together not by law but rather by blood. This idiosyncratic ethno-nationalism means that, for some, the two Koreas can never be truly separated by politics or geography

It’s what still unites the North and South Koreans. Particularly in their disliking of the Japanese. “Minjok” was said to be one of the most frequently used words by President Moon in his meetings with Chairman Kim Jong-un.

Why is this important? Because it seems that it was attitudes of minjok that drove the new visa regulations brought in by the Ministry of Justice. Any non-Korean now has to get a permit to “leave” the country and then also receive a health-check abroad before returning. Failing to do either means you’re not allowed back in the country.

However, if you have a certain visa, which shows your mixed Korean heritage, you are exempt from these. Diplomats and other special cases are also able to avoid the bureaucratic procedures.

It’s interesting because there have long been different classifications of foreigners here. The E-2 native speaking English teachers are very much the minority in terms of numbers but often the loudest and most visible in media. There are other communities who have far more often faced the rough end of the stick in terms of laws and regulations, often silently or without their voice not heard as loudly.

Now, at least, there has been some element of egalitarianism in the treatment of foreigners. The new visa regulations say there are Koreans and there are non-Koreans. There are no distinctions made between those from a “western” country or those from elsewhere in the world.

And it’s worth remembering that the laws have been enacted to help control the spread of Covid-19. Like any bureaucratic government policy, whether they succeed or not is a matter of much debate.

However, many of the Koreans that I have spoken to (from the conservatives to the woke), support these new rules. Unflinchingly. Of course, this virus does not only affect certain races – we’ve seen Coupang incidents, churches, nightclubs, trips to Jeju and more – but the country will do its best to protect the people that live and work here.

For the most part, it’s doing a very good job.

Having been here for 15 years, I remember when we used to have to get re-entry visas before leaving. It’s not a new thing but a return of a previous policy. I’ve also done innumerable health checks, drug checks, AIDS tests, criminal checks, and everything else over the years. I’m far from a saint but I followed the law each time because I was happy living and working in Korea.

After all, if we are going to respect other cultures, a diversity of beliefs and ideologies, and tolerate things beyond our own personal value system, we have to allow sovereign countries to make their own decisions as best they see fit.

Korea has its own ontological and epistemological journey. Its laws and culture have been created according to specific spatial and temporal circumstances.

Yes, there is an element of “minjok” here and that might not sound appropriate to those from different parts of the world. But it’s worth remembering why the concept of minjok arose. As well as understanding why you or I also hold certain values. We are historical and sociological subjects – often speaking and reciting the concepts and words of the societies in which we grew up. The words of our dead ancestors.

This ain’t Rome, perhaps evidenced by the fact that modern South Korea sometimes feels like it actually was built in a day and that the pizza often has corn on, but one is nevertheless expected to do as they do here.

And while America is in flames and British elites seemingly flaunt government rules, I’ll continue to do my best to try and understand and accept the Korean journey – even if it means I don’t always approve of it.

Source: Korea: race, racism, and the ‘other’

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Bill proposed to give high-educated foreigners Korean citizenship

2019/04/23 Leave a comment

Very selective proposed citizenship policy, but still signifying change:

Foreigners acquiring a bachelor’s or higher degree in South Korea may soon find it easier to become naturalized here, as a group of lawmakers have proposed easing the nationality law to help overcome the nation’s population reduction.

Rep. Kim Kyung-jin of the minor opposition Party for Democracy and Peace said Monday that he and nine other lawmakers have jointly tabled a motion to revise the Nationality Act to the National Assembly, seeking to ease the rules on simplified naturalization.

The proposed revision calls for allowing foreigners earning a bachelor’s degree or higher in South Korea to be naturalized as a Korean citizen. It also obliges the government to flexibly devise and implement its nationality policies depending on special and economic circumstances.

“The government has spent several hundreds of trillions of won over the past decade to overcome the population crisis caused by the severe low birthrate but failed to attain any visible outcomes,” Kim said.

“Our country should also implement a policy of naturalization that actively accepts foreign talent.”

The lawmaker said the proposed legal revision was based on the opinions of government officials and experts gathered from a forum in February.

According to Statistics Korea, the nation’s population is expected to peak at 51.94 million in 2028 before gradually decreasing to 39.29 million in 2067, a level seen in the 1980s.

The number of foreigners living in South Korea was 2.18 million as of the end of 2017, up 6.4 percent from 2016, government data showed. The number of foreign students here also rose 16.5 percent to 135,000 in the same period.

Kim said the current naturalization policy is focused on multicultural families based on international marriages and lacks consideration of foreign students and talent.

“If talented foreigners will be able to become naturalized in South Korea more easily through the proposed legal revision, it will be helpful in resolving social and labor problems caused by the population reduction,” Kim said.

“As the population problem is a serious matter directly linked to the national fate, we will continue to make efforts to improve the nationality system in the future.” (Yonhap)

Source: Bill proposed to give high-educated foreigners Korean citizenship

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with

[Multicultural Korea] Military changing to embrace diversity

2019/02/20 Leave a comment

Interesting (Canada still has challenges with respect to women and visible minority representation in the Canadian Forces):

In a country where the phrase “homogenous nation” was once chanted with pride not long ago, there was nothing strange about a provision within the military law that exempted men of mixed heritage from military service if they were “clearly biracial” in appearance, despite being South Korean nationals.

But the presence in Korea of more foreigners and more international couples is slowly leading the country to a change of attitude. Within the past decade, the military law was amended requiring all men of Korean nationality to serve in the military, regardless of race or ethnicity. (Naturalized South Koreans and North Korean defectors can also enlist, but they are not subject to conscription and can still opt out.) The fact that the number of soldiers had decreased due to low birth rates and the aging population also played a part.

The Ministry of National Defense has proposed measures to encourage the rigid military culture to adapt to the increasingly diverse population, but concerns remain over its capacity to do so.

All able-bodied men of Korean nationality between the ages of 18 and 38 are obligated to serve in the military for about two years. An amendment to the law in 2010 also imposed mandatory military service on Korean men from multicultural households.

When the amended act came into force in 2011, the military enlisted 100 multicultural soldiers in the first year, according to the Defense Ministry. While annual counts of soldiers from multicultural households are not available for privacy reasons, the Defense Ministry estimates that more than 8,500 will enlist annually from 2025 to 2031.

In a step toward embracing diversity within the military, one of the first moves the Defense Ministry took in 2011 was to replace the term “minjok,” or ethnic group, with “gungmin,” or citizen, in the oaths that soldiers take when they enlist or become commissioned officers.

In 2016 the ministry also introduced the Framework Act on Military Status and Service to protect the rights of individual soldiers and prevent discrimination among them. Article 37 of the act states that soldiers have to respect “multicultural values” and that the Defense Minister needs to educate soldiers so that they understand and respect multiculturalism.

The ministry said it is careful not to overemphasize differences between the multicultural soldiers and their peers.

“While life in the barracks is basically a corporate life, the commissioned officers and commanders in the military units will consider the different needs of the soldiers,” an official from the Defense Ministry said.

“We have not been informed of soldiers having difficulties with the diet, or religion.”

In a further step, the five-year immigration reform plan announced in 2018 included a proposal to review compulsory military service for naturalized Koreans.

While the discussion arose in the context of fairness, it also encompassed concerns about security, with some arguing that there would be “Chinese troops,” considering that many naturalized Koreans come from China.

While the inclusion of soldiers from diverse cultural backgrounds represents great progress, said Seol Dong-hoon, a sociology professor at Chonbuk National University, it may be premature to discuss conscription for naturalized Koreans.

“While soldiers from multicultural households are born as Koreans and are naturally imposed with the mandatory military service, the situation is different for naturalized Koreans. Besides, it may not be best to make their duty mandatory, because many of them become naturalized Koreans to pursue their professional careers here — like athletes.”

A year has passed since the proposal was announced, but not much has been discussed. The Defense Ministry said it is reviewing the matter and will comprehensively consider what is fair and what influence such a step might have on society.

More efforts are being made, but society’s fundamental perspective needs to change, Navy Lt. Rhee Keun said. Lt. Rhee, who gave up his US citizenship and came to Korea to enlist as a commissioned officer here, said he had endured numerous discriminatory remarks in his eight years of service.

“When I first joined the Navy here, I had regrets. The senior soldiers would often call me ‘Yankee’ and tell me to go back to my country,” he said. Rhee graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in the United States in 2007.

“They bully you when you come from another country. I did not speak Korean well, did not know much about the Korean culture and I was clumsy at first. So it was very stressful,” he said, adding that the closed military culture revolving around regionalism and school ties should be rejected.

A survey of 131 early-career commissioned officers, undertaken for a doctoral dissertation published last year, hinted that contradictory sentiments about soldiers with multicultural backgrounds have not disappeared.

When asked about the pros and cons of having soldiers from different cultural backgrounds, the officers said their presence could lead to more creative thinking and flexibility in the currently rigid, conservative military and could also reduce discrimination against multicultural families, according to “Officers’ Awareness of Multiculturalism in the Military and Implications for Policy Direction” by Youngsan University researcher Lee Yun-soo.

But they also projected doubts about whether soldiers from different backgrounds could have the same loyalty and devotion to the country, with some saying it would be hard to trust those soldiers in the event of war. Respondents raised concerns that there might be a greater risk of military secrets being leaked, or of Korea making “internal enemies.”

They also said cultural and language barriers could cause trouble inside the military.

“Korea is a country that has a relatively ‘high border’ inside the minds (of our people),” Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said in announcing the five-year immigration reform plan in February 2018.

Still, Lt. Rhee said, it is important that that more people like him, people from different cultural backgrounds, join the military so that social attitudes can change.

“With more exposure, the sentiments will naturally change. I also believe it is important for everyone to contribute to the society they are in, in any way,” he said.

When it made headlines here that former lawmaker Jasmine Lee, a naturalized citizen from the Philippines, had sent her son to the military in 2016, Lee stressed that equal treatment of multicultural families was important to reduce discrimination.

“While the caring treatment (of multicultural children, by extending military exemptions) is appreciated, making such distinctions could also create a sense of alienation and trigger controversies,” Lee said in a media interview around that time.

For Jung Yeom, a naturalized Korean from China, it is important for her children to fulfill their social duty, even if it is worrying for her as a mother.

“I do worry, but I believe it is always difficult in the beginning, for everything. The country operates (its military system) as it should, and those who do not like it will have to leave,” Jung told The Korea Herald. Jung came to Korea in 1997 to marry her Korean husband and has two sons.

Source: [Multicultural Korea] Military changing to embrace diversity

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Public diplomacy critical for multicultural Korea

2018/12/18 Leave a comment

Grappling with immigration and integration:

The latest hazing death of a biracial teenager in Incheon and anti-immigration protests against asylum seekers from Yemen show the challenges Korea faces as it becomes a multicultural society.

To tackle such challenges, the Korea Foundation (KF), a nonprofit organization that has been promoting public diplomacy under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is stepping up efforts to help people develop a global mindset, according to KF President Lee Si-hyung.

He deemed two projects — a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with district offices in Busan and the first “Public Diplomacy Week” — were especially helpful to achieve the goal.

The MOU was signed by ASEAN Culture House, an institution in Busan aimed at nurturing cultures of 10 ASEAN countries, and each district office in Busan to enhance cooperation for supporting multicultural families, many from Southeast Asia.

The first Public Diplomacy Week from Nov. 1 to 3 at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul was to assess Korea’s public diplomacy and how it can be developed to help Koreans and foreigners understand each other better.

“Protests against the asylum seekers from Yemen are only beginning of the problems already faced by the European countries,” Lee told The Korea Times. “And having a global mindset should be the starting point to tackle the issues.”

He suggested a two-step approach — raising public awareness toward diversity in the short term and getting ready to accept refugees in the long term.

“In that regard, the ASEAN Culture House’s project is right on target for our goal in the short term,” he said. “And although not intended, Public Diplomacy Week is believed to help Koreans understand the people from outside.”

Established in 1991, the KF aims to promote understanding of Korea and strengthen partnerships with institutions and opinion leaders around the world.

It has been responsible for public diplomacy-related projects in accordance with a public diplomacy act enacted in August 2017.

The first Public Diplomacy Week featured presentations by embassies in Seoul on their respective public diplomacy programs, a conference on the role of social media in public diplomacy and an introduction to jobs in the public diplomacy sector.

The KF plans to host Public Diplomacy Week every year.

ASEAN Culture House opened in September 2017, in line with the government’s plan to relocate government bodies and public organizations outside Seoul for balanced societal development.

The KF moved its headquarters to Seogwipo, Jeju Island, in July, while leaving its global affairs bureau in Seoul.

It enables the foundation to operate in three cities in Korea, along with seven offices abroad.

“I believe our presence in Busan and Jeju Island can help their campaign to go global,” Lee said, referring to Jeju’s campaign for international investment and conferences.

He pointed out that Busan and outer South Gyeongsang Province were home for many multicultural families.

The foundation’s overseas projects include Korea Chair and Korea Center to enhance collaboration with scholars, researchers, politicians and journalists on security policies.

Korea Chairs have been established at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, led by scholar and policy wonk Victor Cha; the Brookings Institution, led by academic Jung Pak; and Free University of Brussels, headed by Ramon Pacheco Pardo. A Korea Chair at Rand Corp. is being expanded. All the institutions except the Free University of Brussels (Belgium) are in the United States.

Korea Centers have been set up at the Woodrow Wilson Center (U.S.) and the Institute for Security and Development Policy (Sweden).

Source: [INTERVIEW] Public diplomacy critical for multicultural Korea

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

South Koreans Learn to Love the Other

2018/07/18 Leave a comment

A bit more of a positive take compared to other articles I have seen but clearly government is making efforts:

From Japan to the United Kingdom, developed countries face a two-pronged problem: aging populations and a deepening hostility toward the immigrants who could keep their aging economies growing. One country may have found the answer to both. In South Korea, a top-down campaign begun in 2005 to remake the nation’s ethnic self-image has had remarkable results. In less than a generation, most South Koreans have gone from holding a narrow, racial concept of nationality to embracing the idea that immigrants of Chinese, Nigerian, Vietnamese, or North American descent can be as Korean as anyone else.

Part of what makes South Korea’s story so striking is its speed. Until the early 2000s, the country’s textbooks, immigration policies, and national imagery had placed a heavy value on the purity and unity of what was known as the Korean bloodline. The fixation with national uniqueness stemmed in part from the 20th-century trauma of Japan’s 35-year occupation, during which Koreans were portrayed as a subordinate part of a wider Asian empire. After Japanese rule was lifted in 1945, educators in the newly created South Korea drew on the works of independence activists such as Shin Chae-ho, who claimed that the Korean race-nation (minjok) had existed for millenniums, in writing the country’s new textbooks. Ethnonationalist rhetoric became commonplace among both teachers and politicians.

But in 2005, the national mood began to shift. Korean society was aging, with the fertility rate dropping to just 1.08 births per woman, a historic low. South Korean men were responding to the demographic decline by increasingly seeking foreign brides from poorer neighbors — first from China and then, as China got richer, from Vietnam and Cambodia.

That year, the total percent of marriages to foreigners was already 13.6. In some areas, such as North Jeolla, nearly 50 percent of Korean men were marrying Chinese women. At the same time, prejudices remained strong: Children regularly verbally abused their mixed-race classmates, sometimes with teachers’ approval. One Korean-American blogger, on his popular left-leaning English-language site Ask a Korean!, said gloomily that he feared the prospect of race riots if attitudes didn’t change.

Such fears prompted the formation of the Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy, which pushed a pro-natalist agenda, including increased child care and tax breaks for parents. But the South Korean media also began to host fervent discussions of multiculturalism. In 2005-2006, the number of articles on the topic tripled from previous years. The media shift was echoed by a change in policy from the top, initially driven by President Roh Moo-hyun. The campaign then crossed ministerial divisions and party lines, surviving the changeover from the liberal Roh administration of 2003-2008 to the more conservative administration of President Lee Myung-bak. Lee’s government sought both to persuade the public to embrace immigrants and to promote integration by educating new foreign-born brides in the intricacies of Korean culture. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family simultaneously started a campaign to persuade the public to accept multiculturalism. Immigration commissioners and the presidential committee on aging set multiculturalism as a national priority to combat a maturing society. South Korea was to become a “first-class nation, with foreigners” — a phrase echoed throughout government documents and speeches.

The campaign rapidly picked up pace, especially after the passage of the 2008 Support for Multicultural Families Act. The bill increased the national budget for multicultural programs from just $96.9 million a year in 2009 to $197.5 million by 2012. South Korea also held in 2008 its first Together Day, a nationwide festival designed to make multicultural families feel more accepted, mixing ads of happy children and parents with talent shows and cultural displays. Not every move succeeded: Explicit anti-discrimination legislation was blocked repeatedly in the National Assembly.

Then, in 2009, the Ministry of Justice established the Korea Immigration and Integration Program to smooth the route to citizenship for foreign residents — one previously accessible only to a few professional elites — by introducing a clear points system. Official materials began to promote the term damunhwa (multicultural) to describe mixed families, since honhyol (mixed blood) had taken on derogatory connotations. Politicians spoke of multiculturalism in glowing terms; in a 2010 speech to the nation, then-President Lee described all foreign brides as his own daughters-in-law. Public school teachers received training in how to address the bullying of mixed-race children, and images of multicultural families started to appear on posters in government offices.

Public school teachers received training in how to address the bullying of mixed-race children, and images of multicultural families started to appear on posters in government offices.

The language introduced in 2005-2006, and backed up by later legislative action, produced a striking change in attitudes. By 2010, the Korean Identity Survey, a national poll run by two research institutes and a South Korean newspaper, found that more than 60 percent of Koreans supported the idea of a multicultural society. As of July 2016, more than 2 million foreigners lived in South Korea, up from just 536,627 in 2006. The country elected its first lawmaker of foreign birth, the Philippine-born Jasmine Lee, in 2012. By 2020, an estimated one-third of all children born in South Korea will be of mixed South Korean and other Asian descent.

Local efforts across the country have matched the government’s top-down publicity campaign. “South Korea’s system to dispatch counselors to help multicultural families has helped a lot of people,” said Shin Suk-ja, the head of the Multicultural Family Support Center group, a network of 218 offices across the country that provides aid to immigrant families. Popular culture has also embraced the idea of a multicultural society. Some of the country’s most popular young stars are Koreans of African descent, such as Han Hyun-min, a Nigerian-Korean teenage model who shared his story on the TV series My English Puberty of being sacked from a modeling job because he only spoke Korean, not the English that his appearance suggested. In 2016, Jeon So-mi, then a 15-year-old Canadian-Korean, won the popular talent competition show Produce 101 — probably in part because the voting audience at home saw her foreignness as cool.

Despite the success of the government’s multicultural campaign, there has been some backlash in recent years. Between 2011 and 2015, the Korean Identity Survey polling data revealed an increase in public concerns about multiculturalism, with support dropping to 49.7 percent. The data also showed that many Koreans associated foreigners with crime, job losses, or a greater tax burden. Academics and activists have criticized the government for reinforcing the sexist stereotype that multicultural families mean a Korean man and a foreign woman.

Source: South Koreans Learn to Love the Other

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with

ICYMI: Multicultural children face discrimination at South Korean schools

2018/06/25 Leave a comment

Not surprising but the impact on educational outcomes worrisome:

Children with multicultural backgrounds face discrimination at school, reflecting the prejudices against biracial people in the wider Korean society. To make Korea accommodating to them requires a change in Koreans’ attitudes, according to experts.

Kim Hye-young, 32, a Korean language teacher at Guro Middle School, says multicultural children at her school often face discrimination from classmates.

“Children from multicultural backgrounds are treated as second-class citizens by their peers,” Kim told The Korea Times on Tuesday. “Some of the students call their classmates with a Chinese parent jjang kkae.” Jjang kkae is a demeaning term Koreans use to refer to Chinese people.

Park Sung-choon, an ethics education professor at Seoul National University, said he made similar observations while interviewing multicultural children.

“One child with a Mongolian parent that I interviewed said it happened everywhere, whether it was in the classroom, the sports field, or a playground,” Park said at a multicultural family forum hosted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Tuesday. “They made fun of him and ignored him for his family background and accent.”

Due to such circumstances, the school dropout rate is four times higher for children with multicultural backgrounds than their peers, according to 2014 data from the Ministry of Education.

Park says this discrimination of children with mixed heritage is fuelled by a faulty understanding of multiculturalism in Korea.

“Koreans approach minority cultures here as something on the receiving end, as something that requires paternalistic aid,” Park said. “There needs to be more multiculturalism education programmes that teach people to regard countries like Vietnam as equal partners with just as much development potential as Korea.”

Changing demographics

As more children of international marriages enter the public education system, schools are becoming the first testing ground for a multicultural Korean society.

Guro Middle School is feeling this change most acutely. It is in Guro-gu, western Seoul, which has a large Chinese population. About 20 per cent of its students have a Korean-Chinese parent.

“The number has increased twofold since I first started teaching here four years ago,” Kim said.

There are about 1 million multicultural children enrolled in the public education system. About 90 per cent are children from marriages between a Korean and a foreigner.

The number of multicultural children increased most steeply in elementary schools, with one in 50 students now having multicultural backgrounds.

Experts forecast that about 20,000 multicultural children will enter elementary school every year.

Kim says these multicultural children have big potential due to their bilingual abilities.

“These children have the potential to become global leaders and build bridges between Korea and other nations on the international stage,” Kim said. “But there needs to be more institutional support for multicultural children at school, especially those who cannot speak Korean well because they lived abroad first.”

Source: Multicultural children face discrimination at South Korean schools

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Korea: ‘Teachers need multicultural education’

2017/05/25 Leave a comment

Numbers still small: 100,000 compared to over 9 million but likely concentrated in cities:

Korea’s multicultural population continues to grow, but the government has yet to establish a law that requires teachers to receive training to better address a racially diverse classroom.

In 2010, a multicultural education class was introduced in the university curriculum for students aspiring to become teachers, but under the current system it is not compulsory.

Mo Kyung-hwan, president of the Korean Association for Multicultural Education (KAME) and professor at Seoul National University (SNU)’s Department of Social Studies Education, teaches this class, but only seven students are taking it this semester.

“If only seven students signed up for a class taught by a part-time instructor, it would be canceled. As dean of the department of social studies education, I was not required to teach the class, but decided to as students need to learn about multiculturalism,” Mo told The Korea Times in an interview at SNU, Tuesday.

Classes on school violence and special education are mandatory, but those on multiculturalism are not.

Classes teaching multicultural education were initiated at universities and departments of education with government funding, but the education ministry has cut subsidies and many schools no longer offer the classes.

Teachers who attended university before the classes were introduced in the curriculum have even less opportunities.

Since 2008, the Seoul and Gyeonggi offices of education started offering classes on multiculturalism for teachers. However, they are limited to 15 hours a year, which is far from enough, Mo said.

“The number of Korean students is shrinking, but that of multicultural students is growing. Students’ receptivity of multiculturalism has improved, but multicultural students still face prejudice and bullying at school,” he said, pointing to the need for teacher training to be made mandatory under the new Moon Jae-in administration.

Data from Statistics Korea shows the number of school aged children stood at 9.38 million in 2016, a 10.4 percent decrease from 10.5 million in 2010.

In contrast, the number of school-aged multicultural children stood at 99,186 in 2016, more than a 200 percent increase from 31,788 in 2010.

Multicultural children, who accounted for 0.44 percent of the student population in 2010, now accounted for 1.68 percent in 2016.

Korea’s efforts to embrace multiculturalism

Korea was mostly homogeneous up until the 1980s, but it saw an influx of immigrant workers in the 1990s and immigrant brides in the 2000s. Due to the growing population of immigrants and their children, the government drew up its first policy to support them in 2006.

In line with the policy, the education ministry revised the school curriculum so that textbooks would help students enhance their receptivity of multiculturalism.

In the meantime, schools aid multicultural children in learning Korean and building their academic skills, and assist them in planning their careers.

“Multicultural education has grown tremendously both in quantity and quality in the past decade,” Mo said.

“In the next decade, as the multicultural population grows further, their countries of origin, reasons for immigration, socio-economic status and Korean language abilities will be diversified _ and education for these students will be specialized to accommodate their needs.”

Learning from immigrant nations

Countries such as the U.S. or Canada, which began as immigrant nations, have far more advanced policies for immigrants.

“What we can learn from these countries is the premise they had of immigrant policies _ that they were not merely welfare for minorities but for the nation as a whole,” Mo said.

This is because immigrants contribute to the economy with the labor they provide, and with the taxes they pay. Young immigrants and their children can also provide a solution to countries with low birth rates, he said.

“When neglecting them, they could pose instability to the nation, but providing them support will lead to social integration,” Mo said.

He added these countries regarded policies for immigrants as important as defense, economic or labor policies.

“In the long-term, Korea will need a government body solely dedicated to immigrant affairs,” he said.

Source: ‘Teachers need multicultural education’

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

The sex slaves of Japanese soldiers deserve – at least – a real apology

2016/01/14 Leave a comment

Sylvia Yu Friedman, author of Silenced No More: Voices of Comfort Women, on the need for a more meaningful apology:

In 1970, Willy Brandt, the late German chancellor, dropped to his knees spontaneously in front of a memorial as a sign of repentance before survivors of the Holocaust in Poland. Many said they were healed by his moving gesture.

For the thousands of girls and women forced to be sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese military from the 1930s to the end of the Second World War, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should have knelt on the ground in deep contrition for these “comfort women” – but instead, a Japan-South Korea deal was quietly expedited behind closed doors.

…After hearing Ms. Kim’s [a former sex slave] testimony first-hand, I wrote a commentary for this paper in August, 2001, about her and her fight for an official apology and restitution from the Japanese government. Immediately, a publisher reached out and asked for a book proposal on the topic. I wanted to describe their unspeakable stories for the world to know.

That is what compelled me to interview dozens of survivors in different countries for more than 10 years. What struck me the most from these interviews was how this period of captivity destroyed their lives. Universally, they told me that they wanted a sincere apology from the Japanese government that would bring healing and closure to their suffering.

The Japanese government has claimed that all rights to compensation were dealt with in treaties after the war. Until 1991, Tokyo repeatedly denied that women and girls were forced into a systemic sexual enslavement and blamed private profiteers. For the victims, these denials added insult to injury. That is why these women began to speak out.

After more than 70 years, a simple bilateral agreement between two elected officials to push this painful truth under the carpet will never be acceptable to the victims or the general public. These women must have a seat at the table. They must have a chance to express their views. They have a right to the last word.

This issue goes beyond Korea and Japan. Victims of this atrocity can be found in China, Taiwan, the Netherlands, the Philippines and Indonesia. If discussions are going to take place, these countries need to be included in the dialogue.

Many people throughout Asia Pacific, and some elder Koreans and Chinese in North America, continue to hold on to anger and hatred toward the Japanese. Unless this is resolved, these feelings will be passed down from generation to generation. A sincere, compassionate apology given to these women would help to heal wounds that extend beyond the issue of wartime military sex slavery. It would show the world that the Japanese understand that what they did hurt many people, but they are willing to take sincere steps toward true reconciliation from historical wounds.

As a last push for justice for comfort women survivors, the first Korean-Canadian senator, Yonah Martin, has invited me to participate in the International Parliamentary Coalition for Victims of Sexual Slavery, which includes ex-MP Joy Smith and U.S. Congressman Mike Honda, a long-time advocate for comfort women victims. Ms. Martin told me that the plight of the aged survivors – almost half of the victims were Korean – strikes a deep chord within her. She launched the global network last year at the United Nations.

Closure of these past wounds is urgently needed for all those involved, even for the Japanese. The survivors are dying off – only a handful of women are alive in China, Taiwan, the Netherlands, the Philippines and Korea. They need healing and reconciliation. That can happen only when a foundation of truth has been laid.

Source: The sex slaves of Japanese soldiers deserve – at least – a real apology – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Historical Recognition, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Will Japan’s apology to ‘comfort women’ bring closure?

2016/01/04 Leave a comment

While leave to others the foreign policy and geopolitical dimensions, long overdue apology:

Now, in a landmark agreement this week, Japan has apologized anew for the practice and pledged $8.3-million (U.S.) to a fund set up for survivors in what both sides said was a “final and irreversible resolution.” Does this new agreement have the power to change the course of Asian geopolitics at a time when the U.S. needs a united front against China, or will it join all the other war-time apologies that are issued, criticized, forgotten and buried beneath the remarkably long-lasting, ever-lingering hatreds of East Asia?

The surprise deal was immediately hailed in Japan as a coup for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who seemed to have finally settled Japan’s grim historical record in Korea, after previously attempting to downplay Japan’s past abuses. This apology was as unambiguous as Mr. Abe was likely to give, offered remorse and considered the immeasurable suffering of the women – rather than trying to justify or fudge the history, as many on Japan’s right still do. The money being pledged also came straight from the Japanese government, which was meant to add an air of formality and officialdom.

But the agreement received a more muted response in Korea, where President Park Geun-hye, who is broadly unpopular, has squeezed anti-Japanese feelings for all they are worth. Former sex slaves and opposition politicians immediately criticized the deal for coming about without the participation of the “comfort women” themselves, for failing to acknowledge legal culpability and for not offering formal financial reparations. Former sex slaves said they were also angry Seoul agreed to discuss with them the possible removal of a statue – placed directly outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul – of a former sex slave sitting next to an empty chair, a symbol of the “comfort women” who died waiting for a full apology from Japan. One group of survivors called the deal “shocking” and said it was an act of “humiliating diplomacy” from Seoul.

Unlike in Europe, which has largely moved on from the scars of the Second World War, memories of Japan’s vicious imperial sweep across much of East and Southeast Asia are still vivid – and influence regional geopolitics to this day. South Korea and Japan still do not share sensitive military information, preferring to rout it through the United States, despite the obviously shared security concerns over China’s growing assertiveness in the region and the perennial problem of North Korea.

The U.S. has constantly urged Tokyo and Seoul over the years to reconcile historical disagreements and move forward in a more united fashion on matters of regional importance such as the Six-Party Talks involving North Korea. In a media briefing, a senior State Department official said the deal could be as transformative to regional relations as the monumental Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal between the U.S., Canada, Japan and other Pacific nations.

Some, of course, argue that apologies in international politics are too often counterproductive. The academic Jennifer Lind has noted that reconciliation between nations does not necessarily require a formal apology – let alone many formal apologies, as in Japan’s case – because the apology provides a platform for nationalist elements in both countries to again debate and disagree over the facts.

But laying aside the criticisms of civil-society groups and opposition politicians in both countries, who have an obvious stake in milking the issue forever, the deal marks an enormously positive step in Japanese-Korean relations. Better military co-operation between Japan and South Korea might dampen China’s appetite for territorial disputes over islands in the East and South China seas, and will certainly help the U.S. execute its ongoing pivot to Asia. It will also prevent North Korea from using historical grievances as a convenient wedge to distract and divide the coalition of countries concerned about Pyongyang, and might dissuade the dictatorship from its destabilizing antics.

Japan has already indicated that it is ready to discuss the “comfort women” with Taiwan, though conversations on the issue with Beijing are likely far off. Still, Mr. Abe and Ms. Park – both arch-conservatives who thrive on the support of nationalist elements in their respective countries – will not be in power forever, and leadership transitions might generate additional warmth to thawing relations.

Though imperfect, the deal does represent an attempt to move forward peacefully, without forever nursing the sting of historic abuses. That sort of closure is something northeast Asia desperately needs.

Source: Will Japan’s apology to ‘comfort women’ bring closure? – The Globe and Mail

Filed under Historical Recognition Tagged with , , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →