Korean Pride

Interesting article in the New York Times about the ethnocentrism of Koreans and a growing tide of xenophobia in South Korea, punctuated by palpable disdain of Koreans towards Korean women who are seen socially with foreigners and thinly-veiled disgust (which is oddly juxtaposed with fascination with their culture) towards Americans, Chinese and Japanese.

I've been told be a number of Korean friends that their culture holds a lot of pride in its cultural homogeneity, which manifests itself in this obsession with "pure blood" Korean labels and associations of which "clan" you may have derived your ancestry from. To be fair, the government is actively trying to address this through public education (which I applaud) and legislation (which I get nervous about if, as the address seems to imply, that muttering a racist slur becomes an criminal offense).

I've lived through this firsthand, even here in the States. I can tell you that it was far more difficult for Sarah's parents to accept her dating a non-Korean than for my parents to accept me dating someone who wasn't Taiwanese or Chinese. And I have also known far more Korean friends whose parents insisted upon them "marrying within their race" (or sub-race, however you define Korean, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) than any other ethnic group. Heck, one of my guy Korean friends, Dave, jokingly boycotted my bachelor party as a protest against "yet another non-Korean guy stealing one of our women." Well, at least I think he was joking.

Well, if there's one group that Korean men have a particular hatred for in this respect, it's probably Taiwanese guys. Seriously, I know at least eight other Taiwanese men off the top of my head (let's see, Paul, Ambrose, Jim, Abe, Deerrun, Luke, Jimmy and Phil) who have Korean wives. I think it goes back to my theory of the coming together of two demographic groups who have been pissed on all of their lives. Korean women grew up as marginalized girls overlooked by their male-dominated "I'm fasting and going early morning prayer meeting to pray that the unborn baby is a boy" household, and Taiwanese men grew up as Taiwanese boys beaten into submission with a dominant mother who ruled with an iron chopstick, where sisters were treated as princesses. If you're a Korean son or Taiwanese daughter, you were pampered and got pretty much whatever you wanted compared to your other-sex siblings. So the two other groups, sick of dealing with members of their own ethnic group's opposite sex (Korean men, Taiwanese women) who have this overwhelming sense of entitlement, end up with each other. Well, it's a theory which I concede is founded on tongue-in-cheek generalizations. If you're pissed reading this and you're a Korean man or Taiwanese woman, you've just proved my point. Wink.

Anyway, I have no idea how this ethnic identity thing is going to work out for Daniel and Sophia. At least we can always use the "half-blood" thing as an excuse for why Daniel seems to be retaining absolutely nothing from his Korean school lessons.