Tuesday, April 24, 2012

"Korean men have no excuse"

The 2005 English Spectrum Incident

Part 1: English Spectrum and 'Ask The Playboy'
Part 2: The Kimchiland where it’s easy to sleep with women and make money
Part 3: English Spectrum shuts down as Anti-English Spectrum is created
Part 4: How to hunt foreign women
Part 5: Did the foreigners who denigrated Korean women throw a secret party?
Part 6: The 'Ask The Playboy' sexy costume party
Part 7: Stir over ‘lewd party’ involving foreigners and Korean women
Part 8: The 2003 post that tarred foreign English teachers as child molesters
Part 9: Netizens shocked by foreign instructor site introducing how to harass Korean children
Part 10: Movement to expel foreign teachers who denigrated Korean women
Part 11: "Middle school girls will do anything"
Part 12: Netizens propose 'Yankee counter strike force'
Part 13: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 1

Part 14: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 2
Part 15: Web messages draw Koreans’ wrath
Part 16: Thai female laborers and white English instructors
Part 17: 'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors

Part 18: "Korean men have no excuse"


On January 17, 2005, the Hankook Ilbo decided to focus on netizen views which were critical of the cyber mob which hounded the women in the photos.
"Korean men have no excuse"

Netizen controversy over "posts denigrating Korean women" by foreign language instructors.
"The problem is unconditionally treating as a whore anyone who dates a foreign man."
There are many more netizens who say "It's also an issue in foreign counties... it's natural to criticize"


As controversy rages due to Korean netizens angry reaction to posts by some foreign language instructors who posted writing denigrating Korean women and students on an internet site, an argument that the true fault lies with Koreans' 'inner self reflection' is drawing attention.

One netizen wrote a post titled "Foreign instructors and racist double standards" at the 'Jinbonuri' homepage. It said, "The mentality of patriarchal protection Korean men have towards Korean women is entirely full of contempt." "Don't even think of using aimless violence, instead, protest regarding the copyright law which fills content companies' stomachs."

The person wrote, "What do Korean men do when they go to Southeast Asia? They buy sex, are supercilious and arrogant, and display a spirit of being crude nouveau riche/upstarts, and around Southeast Asia an Anti-Korean wind is blowing." "From the outset, (Korean men) have no excuse for their actions."

The writer wrote on the premise that "The things some foreign instructors said demeaning Korean women are clearly wrong," "but still, opposing the powerful global tumor, racism, with similar racist violence is wrong."

In considering the movement toward physical punishment of foreigners, it criticized the netizens saying, "(Koreans) don't think at all about workers from southeast Asia and some netizens are consistent only in their nationalist behavior."

Another netizen posted at a discussion group at the portal Daum, "It's not about never trying to take sides with foreign instructors. The foreign instructors' behavior is wrong." "It's trying to show the negative effects of nationalism and express concern over things like the promotion of group mentality."

The writer pointed out that some Korean men are not free from the criticism that foreign instructors have received: "Aren't there also Korean students studying in Japan who have promiscuous sex with Japanese women?"

The person added, "The problem has grown serious because of a person committing mistakes in Korea, but the essence of the problem does not come from Korean women."

Another netizen said, "What's wrong with Korean men studying English in the Philippines playing around with the women there and foreign instructors playing around with Korean women?" There was also a netizen who said, "I can't see unconditionally treating a woman as a whore because she dated a foreign man as anything but a nationalistic attitude."

A netizen who expressed concern over the reality of foreigners staying in Korea being treated as criminals said, "[What if] while you stayed in a foreign country an Asian committed a crime, and then the people there treated all Asians as criminals and said 'Let's expel Asians.' And what's worse, what if the girl you're with was treated like a whore? How would you feel?"

On the other hand, there are many more netizens who criticize the instructors and women, saying, "If low quality imported instructors from the US and Canada did it as a group or more systematically, it would be a much bigger problem in Korea now."

A netizen who introduced himself as someone studying in the US argued that, "In the US as well the problem of playing around is just as bad. It's not strange [for Americans] to criticize some [American] women who are thoughtless." One women said, "I saw the problematic club photos, and as a women, I was embarrassed. It's natural to criticize (women who cause problems)."
Except for the last two paragraphs ('natural,' indeed), this article harkens back to the "How to hunt foreign women" article published earlier on which was had some critical views of Korean men and their perceptions of foreign women. While, to be sure, there were not so many articles like these, there were some which criticized negative views of women seen with foreign men and nationalism run amok, and more are yet to come.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

In my opinion, Korean men have negative thoughts about foreign people. Historically, Korea was invaded so many times. And U.S Army in korea caused many problems.
So this bad perception extended to treating as a whore anyone who dates a foreign man.

Nevertheless, that perception is disappearing. Several years later, time will solve this problem .

Unknown said...

It's a very serious problem. I think guilty teachers come to korea for strange purpose, not for teaching. Of course, girls also have definite reasons to be blamed on.But they are still young so they can't think correctly.For example, to think on the american side, if a Korean teacher comes to america for bad purposes, americans will also blame on Korean teachers. So i think guilty teachers should leave Korea right away

Unknown said...

In my point of view, I think the problem is Korea's imprudent importing native instructors. If they are educated well to teach English, they'll do not be a problem in other countries. I've heard that most of native instructors in Korea do not have any certification of education and they teach English only because they speak English. I think it is partially due to kind of racism. For example, when I was an elementary school student, my foreign instructor in hak won did not do his best at teaching us but just enjoy their days. I could feel it at that time though I was so young. For this reason, I think Korea should be more strict in accepting foreigners as instructors.

Unknown said...

Some Korean womans have problem, they are eager to get in some kind of relationship with the white man.
They think white mans are better than any other mans.
White mans are treated almost like a king in Korea. We can just say that the white man in Korea has girlfriend who is Korean.
We can see them walking along the street and also in the club white mans are surrounded by Korean girls.
This attitude toward white mans are really badddddd. This situation is related to strong nationalism and racism.
Patriotism is important and a good thing but nationalism is usually appeared in bad ways and also applying it to humanbeing, it's not right.
We can say that the country has power than us and richer, but it doesn't mean that all the citizens there are all like that.
In the aspect of racism, the difference between ourselves and foreigners are only the skin color, I mean they are all same except the sikn color!!
I really can't understand people who thinks foreigners are all superior than us. We should have pride about our country and themselves.

Bear World Tour said...

It is interesting to hear the Korean perspective on a fraction of a percent of Foreign teachers behavior on the entire countries opinion via the news. Please to not equate (link) quality ESL teachers with poor character. Koreans alike have dual behaviors. They can be great teachers but, have horrible character. I love how these seemly Korean men cry about these innocent Korean women. Give your women more credit and respect please, it will go a long way trust me. Korean women are intelligent and strong. Maybe these crying men actually don't talk about such things with Korean women and just project.