Rasicm in Korea??

Today I wanna adress a new topic, which I should not maybe speak about. Thankfully there is not many people who I know, know about my blog. Sometimes I feel like my worst mistake in my life is going to Korea. I know many people say there is no kind of rasism to white people, but I just wanna take a second to tell you about my experience in Korea. 

First of all, I wanna tell about my university. I been a student here for now two years. Guess how many friends I got? I got one female friend. Guess her nationality? Not korean. Since I started to university here I learned fast that koreans in my class did not want foreigners to join their activities.  Whenever there is a event where students get to hang out and know each other, foreigners are not invited at all, or if they are they will speak korean all the time even if they know english fluetly and lived most off their life abroad. I study international studies and all should be in english, 1000% english. But even the office which should know english give out all the important info we need in korean, and say we should learn korean, Which I understand, but kind of hard when everyone ignore us.

I now been here for 2 years without making any friends. I tried really hard my first year here, but I gave up. Some koreans wanted to spend time with me on the campus. But even then some korean professors told the koreans to not hang out with me, because I'm not korean, and most likely dangerous and criminal. From that time I knew no one wanted to hang out with me.Professors even said out loud in class that all white females with blonde hair is super stupid, while all my classmates looked at me knowing he was right. ?
We also had the debate in class why Korean is better or different than other countries. All agreed on one thing. Korea has "pure blood". Meaning that there is no foreign mixed people in Korea, something they are very proud of. But actually 1/5 koreans are mixed, mostly with other neighbour countries.

When Im out and about I often get the question if Im a prostitute or not. Old man wanting to take me home with them. Like all white females are prostitutes. Here, if you are not korean woman, you are a sex object and you love having sex with random boys and getting paid. 

Not to forget to mention. One time I got hit with the fist by a random Korean man because I was not same race. I was walking home from school, all alone, when this korean guy spotted me, and started to walk against me. I though not much about it, but two seconds after he punched me really hard. I did not know what to do. Should I be angry at him and yelling or hurry home ??? I decided to ignore it and hurry home. It did hurt. But I was to shocked to do anything about it, and I was to close to home anyway. So I hurred with the man following right after me. 

Other than that I have been told by people in public to get the fuck out of their place, to get the fuck out of Korea, to die etc. Or old people looking  But at this time Im used to it. I'm used to people calling me bad things, I'm used to people discriminate me. I have had korean guys break up with me because I did not have the right skin.I know I will not be able to get a job here, I know I'm not from the right country. I know I'm dangerous and spreading some dangerous illnesses (Foreigners are carring AIDS with them) I know my boyfriend when he says I should get used to it, but I know I should never let people talk trash about me..

 

I just want to show this video very quick. Its a video shown by biggest tvchannel in Korea MBC. Its a story about how dangerous foreigners are for korean (mostly foreign guys and Korean females). "Victims of foreigners".  I find this video tragic because it shows mostly footage from district in Seoul with many foreigners, which are in weekends a drinking place. They film guys hitting on Korean females, and say that all foreign guys are taking adventage of Korean females, raping etc. 

This photos is taken from a korean humor show on tv. Many find "black face" humor to be funny. I have also seen kpop stars doing the same thing, like Big Bang G-dragon. I'm not saying every person here finds "black face" humor funny, but showing it on tv shows its wrong.


But It's of course not only white, dark skinned have problem here. Many Korean discriminate other asians. Like Chinese or Japanese. Many Chinese have problem and get bullied alot in school by other students. Chinese are seen as animals and criminal by many students. I remember one class, we had a chinese student who fell asleep during lecture. Professor said out loud that he is a typical Chinese, bad behavior, Chinese can't behave like humans etc. I was shocked listning to my professor talk out loud in class about him while he fell asleep. It's scary how someone who is a professor can behave like this at a university.
I also remember when the tsunami hit Japan. I had some Korean friends at that time who wrote on facebook that they were happy, and "Yey! They deserve it. Die!" and so on. I'm not friends with them anylonger. Many Koreans also boycot Japanese products or brands. It was also on the news, "Boycott everything Japanese!", while filming they burning japanese products. Also on big national tvchannel.

Other than that. There are also people who are curious about foreigners, but maybe not in a bad way.  Like people commenting my nose, asking if its real or fake (got taller nose), that my nose is so pretty and tall. When I had long blonde, curly hair (my natural hair is supercurly) people tended to touch my hair in the subway, mostly older females touching my hair without asking, it's kinda awkward, but it did not make me upset or anything. I guess they are just curious. Its hard to see so curly hair here.
But I remember when I was out with one of my best friends, she left Korea some years ago (miss her so much). She is from Kenya, so her skin is dark. When we took the subway together it happend a few times that people wanted to touch her skin, and rubbing their fingers against her arms and looked at their fingers after(seeing if any color came off?). Touching my hair is one thing,but rubbing someones skin is another. Thankfully my friend is the sweetest girl ever, and she just laughed it off.
Children are also very curious about foreigners. Its normal for children to say "mommy, mommy, look its a foreigner!!" But, I think Korean children are super cute. So I mostly reply them with "hello!" and a smile.  

I just wanna end this entry saying that regardless of what I've seen I don't hate being here. Korea has also gave me some of the most happy times also. Korea are still not so used to foreigners compared to other countries. Just recently people have started to come to Korea, and to travel here. Going on vacation in Korea is fun, It's a good place to travel. I think this issue will be better with time, now that Korea is starting to become more popular to travel and live. Compared with 2009 when I first came here, I have already started to see more immigrants here. Maybe it will still continue to improve and become more openminded in the near future.