Jealousy towards Westerners (from "other" Asians)

[MPhillips]

Yes, I agree Triling, I shouldn't have made the comment I did either, even though I was trying to say something nice. So what if one particular Korean guy out of millions is a jerk--what does that prove?

[Lu]

Well it can be a bad deal for locals of any country to date foreigners.

That's so generalised that it's meaningless. It's a bad idea to get pregnant by a man who is only going to stay in your country temporarily. It's a bad idea to have unsafe sex with a man you don't know well. If you're looking for a long-term relationship, it's a bad idea to date a man who isn't up for that. But there are lots of foreigners who stick around, or want long-term relationships, and there are plenty of local men who leave their pregnant girlfriend or don't stick around for the long term.

And anyhow it's up to the woman to choose whether she wants a relationship with a specific foreign man, it's not the duty of her fellow countrymen to berate her for her choices. If a man from country A dates a woman from country B, their relationship is about that man and that woman, not about the men of country B. That woman is not having her relationship at them.

And also, perhaps the person who downvoted me could tell me what in my post they found objectionable? Honest question.

[studychinese]

 

 

I think it's unfair to generalize about Koreans as a whole based on some anecdotal experience.

 

I think it is unfair to imply prejudice to people that have noticed something. You are denouncing 'noticing', not the thing that has been noticed. In case you haven't noticed, Korean guys are notorious for cockblocking and berating random women that look like Koreans for meeting a foreign man.

 

There was even an article in the New York Times because it happened to an NYT journalist.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/magazine/08lives-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

There is no prejudice here. Koreans, in general, are far more likely to do this than people of other countries. People are not prejudiced or racist for noticing it. 

 

LU - I up voted you. There are a couple of very malicious down voters here. I know who one is for certain, but I don't want to stir things up.

[realmayo]

If a man from country A dates a woman from country B, their relationship is about that man and that woman, not about the men of country B. 

 

I think that's too idealistic: in a world with weak or non-existent societal bonds, it works. But where people are bound more strongly together, it doesn't work. Korea is currently much more about the group than the urban West is. However, the whole world isn't like the West and I think the jury is still out as to whether it should be. 

[studychinese]

Check out this comment from here -

 

http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/06/09/professor-defends-his-woman-in-seoul-restaurant-lives-to-write-story-in-nyt-magazine/#comment-160015

 

Because of the vagaries of the blog format the comment does not appear immediately when you click the link. I reproduce it below.

 

 

Leave aside the quality of this fellow's writing -- this sort of thing is not rare in Korea, and when it does happen, it tends to overshadow the quality of one's dining and sightseeing experiences.

My wife and I have had several of these experiences. My leaving had more to do with the Army than it did with those experiences, but the very intensity and prevalance of this sort of attitude is a big part of why we've gone back as infrequently as possible since then. Now that we have small childen, we don't have a very high tolerance for this kind of crap.

(This is to say nothing of the experiences my friends and clients related to me, which are probably too numerous to relate here. And frankly, Michael is a magnet for this for the same rather obvious reasons reported by many of my African-American clients. Let's just say it: blacks are treated the worst. I'm rather amazed that Michael is so tolerant of how he has been treated in Korea.)

Now, I suppose singing "We shall overcome" wasn't meant as a serious solution, but since many commenters agree that this is not an uncommon occurrence, some fair warning to potential visitors and some shame for Korean society would seem to be an appropriate reaction.

In any event, it seems more constructive than suggesting that people draw up cartoon stereotypes of Koreans.

Is Korea more prone to this sort of behavior than other places? I'd say so. I've traveled in literally dozens of other countries (admittedly, briefly in many of them) but haven't been confronted with nearly as much immediate hostility in other places as I have in Korea. My Korean wife and I have never had an unpleasant or racist experience in the six years we've been back in the States, and that includes plenty of day-trips to small rural towns in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

This is known as "national Darwinism." If you mistreat tourists and business visitors, they'll choose to bring their business elsewhere. If you spit on the soldiers of a country that (inexplicably, in my view) subsidizes your defense, expect frequent incremental troop withdrawals. If you let mob rule and junk science govern commerce with your major trading partners, don't expect to have a healthy export economy. There ought to be, and is, an economic cost to prevalent attitudes that are the antithesis of the global openness of which Korea so ardently wishes of take advantage.

The weak link in this argument is that we've generally to hold Korea accountable for its ugliest behavior, but the reason for that is that not enough visitors to Korea have told the American people what's going on there. There are plenty of write-ups about good Korean food and Bulguksa travelogues on the Web, and that's a side of Korea that should be known. So is this.

[Lu]

I think that's too idealistic: in a world with weak or non-existent societal bonds, it works. But where people are bound more strongly together, it doesn't work.

Can you elaborate? Not sure if I'm understanding you correctly.

If you mean that 'the group' is not one that easily takes in outsiders, and thus people are encouraged to marry within the group to make things easier, fair enough. I can understand that point of view. But even then, if a woman decides to date outside the group, that is still not (or not necessarily) a judgement on the men of the group. It doesn't mean they are inferior or something, and while there can be reason for friction (because there is now an outsider in the group) there is no need to get jealous. After all, in every country the great majority of people prefer to marry someone from their own background, so there will be plenty of women left.

[gato]

I have fortunately never seen men from my country act like that. I've dated foreigners from various countries and nobody ever gave me shit for that.

In Holland with non-white men?

[Lu]

Yes, on occasion.

Editing to add: I'm sure it's quite possible to find Dutch men who would take issue with a Dutch woman dating a foreign man. You'd have to search a bit though. And usually the kind of foreign man they'd take issue with would be a black or Muslim man. I think it would be quite a bit harder to find Dutch men who would object to a Dutch woman dating an American, or Italian, or German man, and not because such men are (often) white, but because they would not be seen as inferior. I have never heard of a foreign man being beaten for dating a Dutch woman, and I believe such a thing would make the newspaper.

But actually a friend of mine is married to a black Dutchman and another friend to a (white) South American, so perhaps I should ask them if they ever got shit for their choice in partner.

(White, 'native') Dutch men who would believe a Dutch woman were somehow 'soiled' if she dated a foreign man in the past would be even harder to find.

Although interestingly, apparently this was the case just after WW2. Holland was liberated by American and Canadian soldiers: healthy young men, who hadn't suffered war and famine, who had just liberated the country and who brought chocolate, chewing gum and music. The Dutch young man often couldn't compete and this caused some resentment.

[gato]

This below probably has something to do with Korean men's attitude:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitutes_in_South_Korea_for_the_U.S._military

in South Korea, most women who used to live around U.S. Army camps were prostitutes. In the Allied-occupied Korea, between the 1950s and 1980s, the total number of women amounted to over one million. Some women chose to become prostitutes. Other women were coerced into prostitution.[31][32] Prostitutes for U.S. soldiers were esteemed to be at the bottom of the social hierarchy by South Koreans,[33] they were also lowest status within the hierarchy of prostitution.

[Johnny20270]

well whatever the reason is, its pretty sad. Korean guys need to grow a back bone and drop the self esteem issues. 

 

Its not just with koreans where people sterotype. I don't think I have ever seen a chineseman with a western girl. I'm sure they are a few. Also I have NEVER seen a western man with a Chinese woman where he is a better catch than she is. 

 

Often the western guy is either

- old,

- bald,

- fat,

- face like a slapped arse,

- weird personality,

- a dweeb  

- can't get decent woman in their own country

(or some combination of all of the above)

 

.. but their attractive quality is their wallet and/or passport 

 

Now, thumbs down all you like but we all know its that's true! 

[MPhillips]

The elephant in the room here that no one cares to discuss (other than gato--although I have a tiny bone to pick with his Wikipedia quote--the idea that only some Korean women who engaged in prostitution in the aftermath of the Korean War were doing so under duress is a little dubious, I guess the implication is that the rest, those who prostituted themselves of their own "free will", could have freely chosen to starve to death instead) is that South Korea (like Okinawa nearby as well as countless other places around the world) is under US military occupation. The US military in Korea enjoys extraterritorial rights (confer the 租界 in pre-1949 China), meaning they can (and do) get away with killing Koreans and raping Koreans, beyond the reach of Korean law. If the US can get away with killing innocent people in Italy (the Cavalese cable-car or funicular incident), just imagine what they can get away with in Korea.

studychinese, my esteemed fellow student of Chinese: You seem highly concerned about Scotland's right to self-determination, why not show a little fellow-feeling towards Korea? The blogger you quote seems to be saying he was posted by the US army to Korea, why does nobody wish to apply a little Sociology 101 (more like kindergarten-level reasoning actually) to Korea, if someone feels you have no right to be in his or her country he or she might not be very nice to you. According to this fine US centurion or legionnaire, whichever he may be, the US maintains military bases in 153 countries around the globe out of a selfless desire to "subsidize" their peoples' defense (the white man's burden is such a heavy one!). Not to engage in cheap Freudianism, but maybe this soothing rationalization helps ease his conscience about what he's doing. Neither do I wish to psychoanalyze a whole country, but what do you suppose the past 100 years and more of being subjugated first to Japan & now to the US might have done to the Korean psyche? I remember some time ago now, around the time the US was poised to invade Iraq again for the second time, I was wearing a t-shirt with an anti-invasion slogan, while shopping in a local Korean-American grocery store. Now where I live is actually rather "liberal" but nevertheless I'd been wearing such t-shirts around for a while and had got nothing but flak from people of various races & ethnic groups (one guy even threatened me with violence). Unlike everybody else I'd run into with a thirst for Iraqi blood, the mom-and-pop proprietors of my local store came up to praise me profusely, while the lady gave me a big hug (the first & only time an Asian person has ever hugged me). Don't you think this says an awful lot about how Koreans feel about their situation? They would be well on their way to reuniting by now, if the US would allow it (the view of my Korean informants). A united Korea, free of US control poses too big an economic threat.

To Lu: Yes, Holland is a wonderful place…too bad there are far too many of us huddled masses in the rest of the world to be able to all fit comfortably there. (BTW, how nostalgic, the US army actually helping to liberate people, that hasn't happened since, hmm…1945!)

[MPhillips]

To anyone who'd like to read a wonderful book in Eng. which discusses the US military presence in E. Asia, please have a look at Chalmers Johnson's "The Sorrows of Empire".

[studychinese]

MPhillips, the poster that you refer to was a lawyer attached to the US army. I don't think that he fits into your vision of an army rapist.

As for the US leaving Korea, I support that (and leaving everywhere else too. It would also be nice if the US government stopped supporting terrorism). In the case of Korea I think that the US army would leave if the Koreans asked them too. The problem is that the Koreans don't want that to happen. Even Koreans demanding that the US army leave in the early 2000s changed their tune when it looked like it might happen.

Clock setting and saying that Korean attitudes to inter-racial dating started with the US army presence is ahistorical. Koreans have always been very ethnocentric, for centuries.

[MPhillips]

Actually now that you tell me he is a lawyer, the few qualms I had concerning my ridiculing of his cant about the US Empire altruistically "defending" its colonies have vanished. I actually feel rather sorry for the majority of those who enlist, because it's that or flipping burgers. Perhaps if the US ceased to threaten and isolate N. Korea a rapprochement could be fostered. But it is not in the US's interests to do so as a reunited Korea would be an economic powerhouse. If Nixon could visit China, why can't B.O. visit N. Korea?

[MPhillips]

The US vis-a-vis S. Korea, a classic protection racket--back the North into a corner until they become ever more belligerant (or self-defensive, depending on your point of view) and of course you can get a lot of S. Korean people to run back scared to the embrace of the Empire.

(As far as the subject of inter-racial dating goes) I don't know but something tells me you're not very old--in ancient days of yore, in this fair multi-racial empire (oops, I meant republic), today presided over by none other than our Dear Leader, Pres. B.O. (himself the fruit of a bi-racial union), in that far-flung epoch (yes a whole 30 years ago!), the great majority of my fellow Americans frowned upon inter-racial dating & marriage. Though I went to high school in a relatively enlightened part of the US, whatever inter-racial dating was going on was played very close to the vest. Inter-racial couples would never kiss in public for fear of the repercussions, so all you're really saying is that S. Korea is about 30 yrs behind "the land of the free & the home of the brave" which has been a multi-racial nation (though not exactly very happily so) since its inception.

[Simon_CH]

 

well whatever the reason is, its pretty sad. Korean guys need to grow a back bone and drop the self esteem issues. 

 

Its not just with koreans where people sterotype. I don't think I have ever seen a chineseman with a western girl. I'm sure they are a few. Also I have NEVER seen a western man with a Chinese woman where he is a better catch than she is. 

 

Often the western guy is either

- old,

- bald,

- fat,

- face like a slapped arse,

- weird personality,

- a dweeb  

- can't get decent woman in their own country

(or some combination of all of the above)

 

.. but their attractive quality is their wallet and/or passport 

 

Now, thumbs down all you like but we all know its that's true!  

 

 

I downvoted you (just as a disclaimer) because I think that's blatantly untrue. I don't know where in China you live but I personally have 3 Western female friends who date Chinese guys (one Taiwanese, 1 Beijing, 1 Shanghai). Now granted, they are anything but average in both looks, experience and personality but that you have never seen such a couple seems quite unbelievable to me, as I also see them outside my social circles occasionally as well. 

 

What's even more unbelievable is that you've never seen an unequal couple in favour of the girl... really? Never seen a good looking, tall, young Western guy with a rather average (or should I say, borderline ugly) Chinese girl? Perhaps you're still in the "all Chinese girls are beautiful" camp, but those guys could have girlfriends back home, most likely better looking too. May be different out in the sticks but in Shanghai and Beijing certainly the couples aren't that unequal. I think the locals (rich) get all the beautiful girls in China, I don't see all that many Westerners getting the top girls. 

[muyongshi]

Never seen a good looking, tall, young Western guy with a rather average (or should I say, borderline ugly) Chinese girl?

I have seen a very ugly (subjective) girl marry a fairly good looking white male before. He worshipped the ground she walked on and I was very (shallowly) surprised!

[studychinese]

MPhillips,

I was in North Korea three weeks ago. The sanctions are a valuable propaganda tool for the regime. Lifting sanctions would take that away and I think the sanctions should be lifted. That said, sex between foreigners and Koreans is illegal in North Korea based on their ideology of 애국애족 (爱国爱族). North Korea is what happens when the cockblocking described by the OP is taken to its logical extreme.

[MPhillips]

Unless you're a diplomat perhaps, & were obliged to visit the North as part of your duties (for instance), you couldn't possibly be that scared of the place, since your visit was your own idea. Thus you don't believe it's run by people entirely unamenable to reason. So if it's not the US preventing detente, who is the culprit?

PS: In future, please restrict yourself to the term "roosterblock", this is a forum for the entire family after all!

[icebear]

Also I have NEVER seen a western man with a Chinese woman where he is a better catch than she is. 

 

Often the western guy is either

- old,

- bald,

- fat,

- face like a slapped arse,

- weird personality,

- a dweeb  

- can't get decent woman in their own country

(or some combination of all of the above)

 

.. but their attractive quality is their wallet and/or passport 

 

Now, thumbs down all you like but we all know its that's true!  

 

Actually, it's often not true. In most cases Chinese girls that are a "real catch" across all dimensions could land a very wealthy and probably attractive Chinese guy. I know a few guys with these kind of girlfriends (and have had some myself). The girls are making a big sacrifice, and dealing with a lot of shit from their family, because they are fed up with all the nonsense that Chinese dating/boyfriends entails on average.

 

Alternatively, the girl is gorgeous but dirt poor or foolish. This kind of relationship is also common in other countries and not Asia specific, and I don't think open to universal criticism like you allude. Some people value aesthetics, youth, wealth, security... etc more than you do. Get over it.

 

And of course there are mostly those couples described in the few posts above - more or less average Chinese girls and average foreign guys. They're together because of dumb-luck/coincidence/good-timing/fate - just like anywhere else in the world.

 

My guess is you are evaluating Chinese women solely on their appearance to decide if they are a "better catch", yet disapproving of those women considering something besides a man's appearance in assessing his "value". I have news for you: this is how men and women differ in nearly every society.