Friend from college has been living and teaching in South Korea for 6 or so years now. He hasn't had anything outside of what you can expect in the US in certain parts.
Anti-refugee backlash in South Korea targets Yemenis fleeing war and seeking asylum
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Same, Mexican dude tho. I got a lot of the arm x in Japan. One time I tired to get in a bar, but got stopped. Got the x, but you could see a ton white people in the bar
Maybe only Russians could go in. Idk I was pissed tho.
I think you have a decent chance at a good vacation in Seoul. Not sure how well you would fair if you stepped out of there though.
sounds good. I feel better. tyvm folks! (and everyone else that I didn't quote; i read your comment)
It's not just the native Koreans but also the white foreigners/expats living in Korea who are part of this backlash. It's rather hypocritical. They point to all the problems in Europe and they say that Korea should remain a homogenous society and not become a terrible multicultural society, the fuck. White privilege sometimes goes too far in their heads.
Ugh. Pretty sure the group likes Trump too.
Sigh. The boatowner at the end has the right mindset. The world is moving more right without realizing the consequences.
Sigh. The boatowner at the end has the right mindset. The world is moving more right without realizing the consequences.
this is embarassing as a korean. do people realize that there is a good chance that they must seek refuge as well if kim and trump plays foul?
It's a spin on the popular "Got mine, fuck you" mentality. These people will be the first to cry when shit hit the fan for them, otherwise, it's "fuck you all" since they're fine, at this moment.
While this mentality isn't limited to Asians, it can get rather bad here because schools/parents have seriously failed to teach that here, as the first reply have said.
Europe and US get a lot of flak for racism, but they have nothing on East Asian homogeneous countries... especially if you're not white. I don't even think of it as racism, but xenophobia born from indifference and lack of experience.
Due to long history of being alone, they have yet to go through the cultural struggles of integrating multiculturalism - so many are even doubting whether it's even worth the effort to change. It's like Chinese rejection of democracy as "superior" ideal.
Due to long history of being alone, they have yet to go through the cultural struggles of integrating multiculturalism - so many are even doubting whether it's even worth the effort to change. It's like Chinese rejection of democracy as "superior" ideal.
Yeah, I often read threads on Era and think that if these folks live where I am living, they would be walking around throwing Soda in people's faces 24/7.
As a fairly dark skinned Filipino American who traveled there for vacation last year, I personally didn't feel or sense any racial animosity towards me. On the contrary, I found almost everyone I encountered to be friendly. But I did stay in Seoul and Busan which are enormous metropolises, and as others have mentioned, these folks are refugees while I was effectively a tourist. South Korea is unfortunately a socially conservative and patriarchal country with a significant Christian population, so when I hear stories about this I both recoil in disgust, and still don't feel too surprised about it.
Which are mostly at war or oppressed due to the western meddeling...
I'm in Taiwan, but as a foreigner I would highly recommend going to any east Asian country with some local friends if you have any, just to minimize your risk of running into racist bullshit. I have black and darker Hispanic friends who come as part of their military service, and they have a great time because they mostly hang with locals who are more open-minded and educated. At the same time, I've had black friends who are miserable because they have to be around people who giggle constantly, or insult them in Chinese because they think they don't understand (mockery is apparent from tone in any language).
The American custom of not pointing out people's ethnicities is not a thing here. There are ladies in my neighborhood who have said "foreigner, good morning" to me every single day for three and a half years without any self-awareness. Taxi drivers will comment on your foreign status often. It's a land of microaggressions and the only way to really mitigate it is by having decent people to hang out with.
A frustrating little piece of rhetoric has developed over the last few years to undermine the entire concept of being a refugee; namely, that if one can 'afford' the means to escape so far away from home, and maybe have taken a couple of luxuries from their old life with them, well you're not really a refugee, are you? Thus the idea that these people are 'fake' refugees who do not truly deserve help, without ever defining exactly how one's country would help 'real' refugees.
Really do feel for the Yemenis in this case.
I don't see how a few hundred people are going to make a dent in South Korea's society. But as to your point, they almost lost their culture not too long ago to Japan and they might face reunification in the future.
Large groups? Around 500 came. Thats like.... nothing at all.
I think it happens everywhere in the world. The asian immigrant community in Germany is also for a big part in the "anti-refugee" camp, just judging by my anecdotal community. Korean, japanese and chinese friends are mostly all like that sadly.
Oh yeah, that bullshit. It is completely absurd to think like that and truly quite angering that people do. If you look up "refugee" in a dictionary it should be a picture of Yemen circled in red with text saying "People from here!" They are the textbook example of people fleeing a horrible situation.
Don’t forget about the UK as well. We are just as much to blame for this situation.
If you look and sound American or some other kind of Western you’ll probably be fine. Part of the backlash here is that these refugees are being seen as “taking something” economically that would “otherwise go to a South Korean”. If you’re a tourist you’ll be seen as bringing money.
Staying in more cosmopolitan areas would also probably help, same with racism anywhere else in the world.
Add to that the "bad guys are hiding among them" narrative and yeah, you have a recipe for xenophobia.
Asylum seeking, refugee status, all this things mean jack shit today. Media and conservative politicians have brainwashed societies to the point that refugees are seeing as evil, freeloaders, economic migrants and so on.
Escaped an war zone with your smartphone? Not a refugee!
But dont worry the problem can be easily fixed, just mark Yemen as a safe country./s
Or warring and doing the oppression as the case may be...
Yemen in particular is a direct result of proxy warring between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The fuck am I reading here? Refugees taking over the government? The hell are you talking about?
This is, I think, exactly why Yemen is one of the 7 countries in Trump's travel ban. The US has been captured by fascists, so they want to make sure that marginalized or displaced Muslims are driven into countries that haven't been captured by fascists yet, to agitate the kind of anti-immigration sentiment fascists feed off of.
...which is being supported by the US and the west. Yemen in particular.
Also current Iranian government and the current Saudi government were installed by the US. Read up on the Iranian revolution and the Saudi king assassination. The west was involved in both of these.
What a horrible race purity narrative. I can see how that would really rocket fuel xenophobia.
Let's not play Racism Olympics to excuse Anglophone countries of directly causing this refugee crisis in the first damn place.
I'd be willing to bet you're a non-muslim minority in a non-muslim country, am I right? 'background checks" and people fleeing from muslim countries seem to go hand by hand, mysteriously.
Even putting your crystal clear xenophobia aside, your pretty bad arguments and your far fetched "theories", fucking over millions of people because of your fear towards hundreds of individuals with negative backgrounds is just inhumane. Although with how scared you are about them becoming majority I guess you think the ones with shady backgrounds leans more into the millions.
It's appaling to hear people like you, in the position you say you are, who know they're wrong, because you admit it, be so selfish and insensitive even with this in mind.
You're a pretty shitty person who is driven by nothing more than debilitating paranoia and easily manipulated by propaganda.
I'm also kinda open minded. If you have a rebuttal to my statement, i will try to listen to/read it. Until then there is nothing i could do.
I like how he ignores the fact that the USA actually accepted less than 1% of the refugees who arrived in the USA.
Sounds like you might be more harmful.
What?? No. How to say this... you can say i'm a minority living in a country where our lives could be at stake. But this is from my personal experience explaining how i somehow understand what the koreans (the ones in the rally) feel. I'm not talking about being right or wrong, it's more about how they act like that
Is this just a figure of speech or are you literally unable to understand the reason? Diversity doesn't just pop into existence. It's the result of a process.
"Diversity is good" is a meaningless, dogmatic mantra to most people in the world. "Diversity" is, as can be plainly seen by reading the news, often a cause for conflict, transitional pains and erosion of social trust. Most people want to be surrounded by people that superficially look like them and belong to the same "group", and the arrival of anyone from an "outgroup" (who isn't a tourist or trader) causes distress to them. They can be taught/raised to feel different but most people who grew up in relatively homogenous societies never had to do that by the time it's too late.
Not only are there people like that, but also those who don't have a problem with "others" per se but have seen what happens when "others" increase in numbers. The aforementioned people are going to be afraid, angry, and then vote right wing governments into power which means life gets worse for EVERYONE who isn't rich.
Sure it would be great if this deeply rooted aspect of humanity which fuels bigotry and racism worldwide did not exist and everyone could get along fine, but let's go back to reality for a second.
South Korea is quite delicious, especially if you like meat, but they are quite socially backward compared to US/EU/AUS. I cringed watching some of their TV shows.
What saddens me is how strong the negative attitude towards muslims is. That's some serious low-key racism right there. The kind that part of Bill Maher's "liberal" audience applauds.
What saddens me is how strong the negative attitude towards muslims is. That's some serious low-key racism right there. The kind that part of Bill Maher's "liberal" audience applauds.
Asking questions on a forum is a perfectly valid part of research. In fact, future people researching the topic might read answers to his question and decide based on those.
I'm sure your intentions were good but I would have just stayed silent if I didn't have knowledge to contribute :)
I love this country as much as the next person, but no. We are way worse hands down at almost any point in history.
Koreans love a protest, you can get a photo of them protesting anything. Even on New Year's eve there was a small group of protesters near the town hall wanting the release of Park Gun Hye, the previous president. But you usually get larger groups protesting outside Samsung/Hyundae about wages/monopoly power, or protesting about rising University costs. And Conservative protesters are pretty pissed Moon Jae In is president, he's practically a communist to them.
Main thing now is that the government (who aren't really that left-wing) do the right thing.
Main thing now is that the government (who aren't really that left-wing) do the right thing.
Sorry for not being clear. They do have foreign workers demographic of course, but they really do not have multicultural culture. I am just pointing out that the country is really super homogeneous and "western liberal ideas" does not really apply to them: like how China doubts democracy, single-race countries like SK doubt benefits of multiculturalism.
Turkey are pretty damn selective as to what Muslims they tolerate. Their own Kurdish Muslim population? They’ll wholeheartedly commit ethnic cleansing on.
Pretty selfish to go on a thread about people fleeing war and terror and who get discriminated against, just to ask the question "Yeah but what about ME and MY problems though?"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Évian_Conference
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis
History repeats itself. :-(
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis
History repeats itself. :-(
Not quite. The current Iranian government came into power after Iranian citizens overthrew the government of the Shah, who was installed by the US. They promised the Iranian people a representative democracy and instead installed a theocracy. The current Iranian government is vehemently anti-US.
Also, it seems that a lot of US-centric ERA posters would be surprised how xenophobic and racist some culturally homogenous nations are. We see a lot of racist behavior and rhetoric in the US because we're such a diverse nation, so those who feel xenophobic actually have to confront folks who aren't like them. Even with that vocal ~40% of the country, though, our attitudes towards immigration and race are, on the whole, less regressive than many, many other nations.
That's not to say that we live in racial harmony - we obviously don't. But having traveled to a few culturally homogenous countries and talking to friends who've traveled to others, the things that people just casually say openly - even urban, well educated people - blew me away.
Here are some sources to consider:
A study of American and European attitudes towards immigrants
Stats on Americans' views towards immigrants
A comparison of racial tolerance around the world
Of course an asshole like Erdogan has not-so-good intentions for receiving refugees. He'll screw them as soon as he gets what he needs. Two things he wants: votes and their language. He's been doing everything to reverse Atatürks language and alphabet reforms since he came to power. Reverting back to the Arabic script is a wet dream for him, now the country has 4+ million Arabic speakers, that dream is much closer to becoming a reality.
