tuesday community august 5, 2008 ‘you don’t understand … · 2008-08-08 · while living...
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16 COMMUNITYTUESDAYAUGUST 5, 2008
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By Bart Schaneman
In 2007 and 2008, in a span of 12months, seven school children fromJeollanamdo died in traffic accidents.Suncheon-based teacher BrianDeutsch found it interesting how edu-cators mobilized their students toprotest American beef imports, butsaid little about traffic safety.
He wrote an opinion piece for theKorea Times titled “Rallies HaveLittle to Do with Food Safety.”
In the piece Deutsch, an American,wrote: “Encouraging students to skipschool to attend these candlelight vig-ils and rallies is not only inappropri-ate and outside the bounds of ateacher-student relationship, but itdetracts attention from more press-ing issues students are facing.
“Namely, they are far more likely tobe killed on field trips or while walk-ing home from school than by con-tracting mad cow disease, which as ofyet has claimed no Korean or Korean-American lives.”
Add that to a previous piece aboutthe use of Nazi imagery in a Koreancompany’s skin care ad, both of whichwere used in a modified version forthe Gwangju News magazine, andDeutsch had attracted the attentionof the netizens.
Who told you to talk, foreigner?
The internet campaign was led bya Gwangju native, Kim Hong-su. Hestarted two blogs to counterDeutsch’s stories and posted theAmerican’s name, blog url, andFacebook profile online in Daumcafes along with an accompanyingletter. He also posted the names ofDeutsch’s schools and advised peopleto direct their complaints there.Deutsch went to the police but wastold they were too busy.
Kim’s message was written inKorean, and it was then translated onDeutsch’s blog.
“What galls me the most is thatthese foreigners are growing fat andrich in Korea teaching their nativetongue while making fun of the samepeople who are paying their wages,”he wrote. “I need your (otherKoreans’) help in correcting this kindof behaviors (sic) from foreigners. Iwould like you to e-mail the editorand those of you who are local toSuncheon should track down thisBrian Deutsche (sic) and find outwhich school or hagwon he teachesin. You can assist me when you findthat information. I seek full and un-fettered cooperation in my campaignto correct this foreigner’s behavior. Ifwe cannot do that to a foreigner onour own soil, how can we hope to cor-rect the behavior of U.S. PresidentBush?”
Kim was contacted for comment inthis article, and responded via e-mail.
“Before you try to learn aboutKorea via a Korean, you should learnKorean and ask the questions inKorean first,” he wrote.
The Gwangju News is operated bythe Gwangju International Center.When Deutsch consulted with thestaff at the GIC, they told him theydidn’t like his articles, either. Theydidn’t like the Nazi story or the trafficsafety story, and they also didn’t likethe story he wrote about the death ofa 14-year-old American boy, MichaelWhite, who drowned in a sauna nearDaegu.
Staffers told him the magazinewas publishing stories that were too
foreigner-intensive. On top of that,the publisher of the magazine toldDeutsch that they might as well closedown the magazine if it wasn’t goingto be appreciated by foreigners.
Deutsch quit the magazine, but histroubles weren’t over.
‘Generalizations are kind of fun’
Anyone can be a blogger. It takesminutes to sign-on to Blogger orWordpress, then you can put up a fewpictures, spew some vitriol and startchecking the site meter for hits.While living overseas it’s a good wayto stay in touch with friends and fam-ily. The days of the mass e-mail areover — they can check the blog forlive updates.
It’s common for English teachersand other non-Koreans to start up ablog. Most of their sites die a slowdeath, however. It’s difficult to updateoften enough to keep readers; whatseemed like a good idea at the timecan easily turn into a bore.
Still, there a few prominent expa-triate blogs in Korea that receive a lotof hits. The six we are interested inhere are: The Marmot’s Hole,Scribblings of the Metropolitician,The Grand Narrative, Ask a Korean!,Roboseyo and Deutsch’s — Brian inJeollanam-do.
The Marmot’s Hole is run byRobert Koehler. It is the most heav-ily trafficked blog of the foreigner-in-Korea set. Koehler, with the helpof a handful of guest bloggers, postsnews items, analysis, entertainmentand pictures of old buildings.Koehler is American, the editor-in-chief of SEOUL magazine, and hasbeen operating the blog for fiveyears.
“Our role is to offer commentaryand criticism from a fresh, outsideperspective,” Koehler said. “That be-ing said, it’s easy to overthink thesethings — personally, I don’t think the‘foreign observer’ has any special rolebeyond that of any observer, which isto say, relaying observations he or shehas made.”
“All countries are open for criti-cism. The question that really needsto be asked is whether anyone shouldtake what we write seriously. For themost part, the answer to that wouldbe no.
“Most of us are guys with too muchtime on our hands who like to bitchabout things we don’t really under-stand. Which, granted, would makeour uneducated rants little differentfrom much of what passes for com-mentary on Korea, Western orKorean.
“I have a warning on my blog ask-ing readers not to generalize fromanything they read on my site, butstill, many seem to do it anyway.Besides, generalizations are kind offun — nationalistically hystericalKoreans, pot-smoking over-sexedEnglish teachers, condescending ex-pats — who doesn’t love ‘em. It’s all aquestion of how seriously you takewhat you read.”
Do you see what I see?
Scribblings of the Metropoliticiancomes from Michael Hurt. The blog isa mishmash of social criticism, inter-national politics, pop culture andcomments on Korean media. Hurtfirst came to Korea from America as aFulbright English teaching assistantin 1994. After earning his master’s inethnic studies from the University of
Scribblings of the Metropolitician — metropolitician.blogs.com
Brian in Jeollanamdo — briandeutsch.blogspot.com
The Marmot’s Hole — rjkoehler.com
Roboseyo — roboseyo.blogspot.com
The Grand Narrative — thegrandnarrative.wordpress.com
Ask a Korean! — askakorean.blogspot.com
‘You don’t understand Korean culture’
California-Berkeley, he came back in2002 to finish his dissertation researchon Korean nationalism. Now in hiseighth year in Korea, he edits theKorea Journal and teaches social is-sues at Honguk University.
Both Koehler and Hurt brought upAlexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchmanwho wrote “Democracy in America” inthe first half of the 19th century. Bothmen consider this book a great com-mentary on the United States.
“The fact that we’re foreignersshouldn’t disqualify us. I look atAmerican social commentary and so-cial criticism and some of our sharpestand best social critics have been for-eigners, people coming from a foreignperspective,” Hurt said.
“We have eyes, we have ears. We canread your newspapers. We read whatyou read. We have access to your infor-mation.
“I pay taxes, I buy (things), I livehere, so why do I have any less saythan you do?
“Why would I put all this effort, whywould I even care, or put myself outthere, why would I do this if I didn’t ac-tually give a (expletive)?”
We’re not that different
New Zealander James Turnbullruns The Grand Narrative. He calls it“An irreverent look at social issues.”Much of his work deals with Koreanadvertising and media as well as socialcommentary. In his eighth year inKorea, Turnbull teaches English inBusan.
“I find the notion that only Koreansare ‘permitted’ to speak about Koreanproblems simply absurd,” he said.“That isn’t to say that all foreigners’opinions on them are equally valid,but if the roles were reversed then I’dbe quite happy to hear the opinions of,say, a Korean person who had spentsome time in New Zealand and whomade an active effort to study andknow New Zealand society and learnthe language. In fact, probably moreso than someone who was merely bornthere.
“The majority of netizens aside, I’veactually found a significant number ofKoreans to feel much the same wayabout the opinions of non-Koreans.
“Koreans are not unique in readilydismissing the opinions of foreigners,but they do seem more defensiveabout foreign criticism than most. Forthat reason, it is very important touse Korean sources as much as possi-ble.
“Another advantage to using andconsidering Korean-language sourcesas much as possible is that it makesyou realize how much you may stereo-type and generalize Koreans yourselfwithout being aware of it.
“Without any Korean ability, foreign-ers are usually forced to rely on eitherthe limited English language media orbooks for the bulk of their information,and both have problems: the former foroften presenting a rose-tinted versionof Korea to the world, and the latter forbeing quickly out of date in a countryas rapidly changing as Korea.”
Koehler also emphasized using thenative tongue.
“Do it in Korean, and in a majorKorean newspaper,” Koehler said.
Writing complaints in English maybe “cathartic,” he said, but it does nogood.
Why do foreigners complain so much?
Another pair of bloggers, aKorean man living in America (Aska Korean!) and a Canadian teacherin Seoul (Roboseyo) put together atwo-part series dealing with for-eigners’ criticism and social com-mentary.
Ask a Korean! wrote, “many com-plaints from expats that the Koreanhas seen show a certain level of igno-rance. This is not to say that com-plaining expats are dumb. It is only tosay that were they more aware of cer-tain things about themselves andabout Korea, they would not be com-plaining as much, and the pitch oftheir complaints would not be as stri-dent.
“Expats rarely venture out of largecities in Korea, and they only really in-teract with Koreans who are fluent inEnglish. Do you know what makes aKorean fluent in English? Money, tonsand tons of it. So not only are expats in-sulated from older Koreans, they arealso insulated from younger Koreanswho are poorer. What kind of under-standing about Korea could an expatpossibly have with this kind of limitedexposure?”
About social critics, Roboseyo wrote,
“Naming a problem is the first step tosolving it, and maybe some of thesecritics are attempting to be a legiti-mate part of that process — that is,they’re writing because they want tosee Korea become a better place — inwhich case, Koreans who are upsetabout non-Koreans criticizing Koreaneed to stop and take a careful look atwhy that upsets them, because theproblem does not lie in the complainersor their intentions.
“To be fair, sometimes the social crit-ics’ intentions are good, but their meth-ods are poor: the sometimes bitter andmean tone of certain critics can behurtful, and as I’ve said to some of myfriends who complain about Koreawith a rude or condescending tone:‘when you talk so harshly, even whenyou’re right, you’re wrong, and even ifyou win the argument, you still lose.’”
‘You don’t understand Korean culture’
Deutsch plans to continue writingfor the Korea Times and updating hisblog.
“I like doing it and I like staying ontop of current events and discussions.On the one hand I totally recognizethat I’m being paid to teach, not tothink, and I say that without beingcynical at all. Most people couldn’t careless about the particular issues for-eigners face, whether in the classroomor in society at large, and hearing a for-eigner talk about them probably isn’tvery interesting.
“I’ve also had to question how wel-come those opinions are. My colleaguesthemselves told me that it was not myplace to opine on what are called ‘sen-sitive issues,’ and a recent letter to theeditor in the Gwangju News suggestedthat I, and foreigners, mind their ownbusiness and not worry about Koreaninternal affairs.
“But I think foreigners do have aright to speak about problems in Koreaand to address sensitive issues fromour own perspectives. At the most basiclevel we are invested in this society,even if for only a short time, and wepay taxes, function as consumers, par-ticipate in local communities, andteach local children.
“Moreover these issues are so prick-ly because they’re not black and white.While it might be unpleasant for someKoreans to hear the other side of thestory, I don’t think it’s inappropriate forit to be raised.
“Our opinions are often dismissedwith a line about ‘you don’t understandKorean culture.’Often this comes whensomething unpleasant happens to aforeigner, or when a foreigner express-es an opinion disagreeable to theKorean listener. It’s well beyond myabilities to explain why this happens,but it’s patronizing and inappropriate.I do believe that although foreignerscan sometimes dwell on the negativewhen writing or talking about Korea, Ithink taking a critical look shows aninterest in the host culture that can behealthy if applied properly.
“I realize that a greater measure oftact is necessary when addressingsensitive issues and when trying tofoster conversations across culturalboundaries, but even with a lot of cod-dling I remain cynical that people areready to hear what we have to say justyet.
“I would love to have Koreans whodisagree with me take the time to pointout their objections, rather than simplyrailing against a foreigner who dares topublish something against the grain.And I would love to have Koreansspend more time trying to educate usabout their culture and their views,then, since so much energy is spenttelling us how wrong and misinformedour opinions are.”
Deutsch said he was asked by hisschool to drop the case against Kim,and that his job was also placed in jeop-ardy because of what he has written.
Brian in Jeollanamdo: http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com
The Marmot’s Hole:http://www.rjkoehler.com
Scribblings of the Metropolitician:http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop
The Grand Narrative: http://thegrandnarrative.wordpress.com
Ask a Korean!:http://askakorean.blogspot.com
Roboseyo: http://roboseyo.blogspot.com
‘I think foreigners do have a right to speak about problems in Korea and to address sensitive issues fromour own perspectives. At the most basic level we are investedin this society, even if for only a short time, and we pay taxes, function as consumers, participate in local communities, and teach local children.’
— Brian Deutsch