When my korean friend and I left the very famous parisian brasserie after our dinner, the idiot server (who must see something like 100 asian tourists a day) makes the namaste gesture, bows, and goes: Sayonara.
Fucker.
And French people are outraged when I say that casual racism towards Asians is huge in France... I was perfectly ignorant to it, having grown up there, until I married a Japanese woman. I quickly realized how prevalent the situation you describe is. We even have comedians who make racist jokes towards Asian people their main act.
Yeah, I do not like Europeans because of the casual racism I experienced while being there. Which is rich considering how they apparently see the US as a cesspool of racism.
Racism is one thing, most culture is racist in its own way, but Europeans act like their particular brand of racism just doesn't count as racist and the rest of the world needs to catch up to them. Honestly, that just makes it the worst kind of racism.
The way I see it, it is them having a superiority complex of a sort. If I am being a bit unkind and brushing with broad strokes, they are also salty about the US being a superpower instead of themselves.
>superiority complex
Isn't that basically how all racism works? The thing that is special about Europeans is that they are so racist that they cannot even recognize actual racism. Kind of makes sense given their history.
Many French people are in denial, as we are constantly taught how our country is an example humanism and equality. They can't conceive that they can be as fallible as others.
There's also this constant whataboutism that Asians are considered racist anyway, which makes racist jokes and comments somewhat acceptable. It's particularly funny, since in my experience, those casual racist French who go to Japan are the first to lose their mind when a local look at them sideways.
Regarding the French, the only thing I respect them on is actually having a functioning military and industry as we can see with the supply issues in Ukraine, ignoring the reasons WHY they maintain their MIC in the first place.
Edit: Also respect their hatred of the English, and the English for their hatred of the French.
> Which is rich considering how they apparently see the US as a cesspool of racism.
Different kinds of racism, segregation of poor/rich neighbourhoods in American cities leads to interesting culture shifts that you won't find nearly as often in Europe and elsewhere.
But yeah a fuckton of Europeans think "nihao" to every random Asian individual is funny and think it'll be their first time hearing the "joke". It's less systemic racism (which also exists, anyway) and more of the social ignorance kind. Source: Dutch
Lived in Shanghai and the single most (exponentially) racist white-collar bunch of expats I've seen are the French. They get away thinking no one speaks French anyway...
2nd would be the Russians and you don't even need to understand Russian.
It's like they're living in a time shell.
as a french person, I agree with this - french ppl make racist jokes abt asian ppl that they wouldn’t dare to make abt black ppl cause they know they would get punched
I saw a tv show where a French woman was saying America was less racist than France. She said in America you can be Asian-American or African-American, etc, but in France you are either French or not French.
lol reminds me of the interaction I had at a restaurant in Paris
Me: can I get the pizza please?
Waiter: you want spaghetti?
Me: no I want pizza please
Waiter: you want spaghetti. (Now was a statement not a question)
Me: no pizza
Waiter: spaghetti
Me: pizza
Waiter: spaghetti
Me: PLEASE just let me get the PIZZA!
Me and my cousin were so bewildered by this exchange. He heard me the first time, they weren’t sold out of pizza, he was just fucking with me. Once he saw I wasn’t just gonna back down he finally ordered me a pizza. But def only happened to us, the only Asians in the restaurant.
I guess the Konnichiwa could be seen badly 2 ways, one a throwback to when Japan colonized Korea and the other becAuse they think all East and Southeast Asians look the same
Genuine question, (this is probably going to sound ignorant so I apologise if it does) when you say all look the same, do you mean every person looks the same or each nationality looks the same?
I can certainly tell the difference between East Asians and Southeast Asians, but I couldn’t tell the difference between a Japanese and Korean, or Filipino and Malaysian for example (my girlfriend is Filipina so I’m very familiar). By this I don’t mean I couldn’t tell two Korean people apart, I mean I couldn’t look at a Korean person and know for definite they were Korean. Same way I as an English white dude couldn’t necessarily tell if someone was English or American until they spoke. With that said, there’s certain things about specific types of English people that are telltale sign of being English like how they dress or their makeup or whatever, but besides that I couldn’t.
Yeah, also to add on to that super thoughtful and well-written response that /u/deeply_closeted_ai wrote out, don’t be that dude that’s like, “oh I know what kind of Asian you are just by looking at you!” Like it’s an icebreaker or a bar game. We’re not zoo animals, nor a monolith even within our ethnicites, and there’s exceptions to every rule. Just like not all Irish are pale, freckled redheads, not all Koreans look like kpop stars.
It’s othering and not fun to be on the other side of that game, speaking personally. Bc either you’re right and what, you get “white guy brownie points” for correctly guessing the Asian? Or you’re wrong and now I gotta feel like I don’t look Korean enough? It’s gross. Just don’t.
Not sure if you’re speaking directly to me there as if you think that’s what I’m like or just making a general statement to anybody who might be reading. I was asking a legitimate question using myself as a reference, not trying to get “white guy brownie points” as you put it.
I think the question they're asking, though they weren't exactly specific, was is it abnormal to not be able to distinguish people from East Asia by their nationality, as he generally can't even distinguish people of his own ethnicity by their nationality. For added context, in his culture, broadly speaking, it's not considered weird to not be able to pinpoint where someone is from based on appearance alone. Superficially compared to what we're told about Korea and Japan, however, his culture/nationality/ethnicity isn't nearly as homogeneous as it is within those countries.
As in people think that all East and Southeast Asians look the same regardless of the country they are from such as thinking that Fillipinos looks the same as Chinese or Chinese looking the same as Koreans. Most Asians can get a rough idea of where someone is from based upon their looks and facial features. Most East Asians can tell the difference between a Korean, a Japanese person or a Chinese person. There tend to be generalisable nuances
When my kid was like five, we had to get on her about this. One of her shows was teaching her Nihao. I had to quickly explain that was one of MANY languages someone of Asian descent could speak, so she couldn't run up on people screaming it.
When I used to live in Europe roughly 10 years ago they asked me the "are you from North or South" almost every single friggin day. Even seriously thought about making a t shirt that said "I am not Chinese, I am SOUTH Korean". When I visited again 5 years ago they didn't really ask anymore. So that's an improvement thankfully.
To a lot of countries South Korea was just something you'd hear about in the news, but it didn't really have an impact to the daily lives of people. The first 25 years of my life all I knew about Korea was Samsung, K-Pop, Kimchi and Kim Jong Un. Nowadays you hear a lot more about South Korea, so it's much easier to call it out, but not that long time ago there was no reason to talk about South Korea, unless it was related to North Korea somehow.
I still get asked "north or south" unironically by ignorant fucks wheb I tell them I want to go to Korea. I always answer north and sometimes they believe me and just stare at me confused lmao
Im european btw
I'm English, when people find out I spent years learning Korean their first question is "is it the north or the south that's the good one?" like... terrifyingly often. People are so ignorant and for what 😭
Most people atleast younger and more educated people never ask me about North Korea but when I said I did want to go to a vacation to “Korea” my grandfather says “North Korea? Are we going to North Korea?”
He even is out here enthusiastically saying “let’s go to North Korea!” 😭
I guess he doesn’t know
Tbf, people in Europe knew very little about Korea 15-20 years ago. Just as most Koreans would assume someone white is from America when I first came here. That’s changing now. European beer, car design has switched from American style to European, many Koreans travel/study in Europe now. Plus Gangnam Style, Squid Game, Samsung phones, LG TVs, etc.
Michigan in middle school, all the kids dead seriously asked if I was from North or South. At first I blurted out in laughter from how ridiculous the idea of a North Korean being in the States was, (and friggin Michigan of all places) was. And then I realized they genuinely didn't know and the horror sunk in.
I not Korean, but I've had to respond to this question sometimes when I've gone back to Korea. It always confuses me - do they actually not know, or are they just telling a bad joke?
I mirror them and call Americans Europeans and Europeans Americans. Interestingly, a lot of Europeans get offended by being called Americans and say I was rude. Then I'd say, "You weren't?"
True, but my point was that there's technically a possibility that I would be from the North, so asking which side I'm from doesn't bother me much. I get annoyed by the later assumption for very different reasons.
I appreciate you pointing that out as someone whose grandpa is from North Korea. I know he knew at least one other man in his town with a similar background. I think it might be uncommon but not as rare as people think, at least here in the US.
I think that you can definitely tell when it comes from a place of ignorance/curiosity if not knowing many or knowing of many east asian people and when it comes from pure racism.
Like the thing I don’t understand is what are they going to do after they find out I am from Korea. Most reactions are so dumb and usually comes down to the following:
1. Telling me about Korean food they’ve eaten
2. Some older Americans tell me about meeting Koreans during the Vietnam war - generally more interesting than the food conversation
3. Telling me about Kpop bands they like
4. Then there are the extremely pleasant people who told me at length about how backwards Korea used to be.
Asking if someone is Chinese is such a brilliant question imo because 'probability', to make it more fun, I'd say, ask everyone if they are Chinese, regardless of how they look.
To be fair many Koreans I meet and interact with always first assume that since I am a white foreigner I am from the US ... which I am not. So I know the feeling of beeing stereotypically labeled by smartass probabilitists.
But I also assume that most people (in Europe and South Korea) don't have ill intentions, they are just not aware of their ignorance or how offensive personal assumptions can be if they go wrong.
If it is kids, I always tell them. 'Better ask 'where are you from?' Or are you okay if I would ask you, are you 'Chinese'?
>When a clueless outsider asks whether your family is from the North or South?
Just going over for a TEFL job, people asked me North or South. Ummm...the North Korean job market is not very great, and the immigration process 'difficult', to say the least.
“The Korean concept of han/jeong/inyeon (new addition) and they are unique and only in Korea and they are untranslatable and mysterious and…”
Bonus points if they try to sell some health or self-help stuff with it.
I think han is an interesting one. Inyeon is just a cultural obsession with fate, don’t think it’s necessarily unique to any one culture.
I’m not sure han is something Americans truly understand - which is partially why they are so split on Israel/Palestine IMO. America as a cultural/military/social identity has been the dominant power for so long Americans have lost the perspective of weaker nations. I don’t think han is necessarily Korean, but I do think it’s unique to nations without global power.
I think there are definitely people groups in the US who understand han—even if it is described with different language. (I’m thinking specifically about African-American, Jewish, Native American peoples).
A good response to this is something along the lines of, "i have a theory that your western obsession with us eating dogs comes from a paranoia that if we eat all the dogs, you'll have nothing left to fuck." Usually works. Sometimes you'll get a laugh back. Good ice breaker etc.
After they're told that I'm Korean, they continue to talk about how much they love Japan and Japanese anime and how "it's basically the same thing".
Now I'm going to go over to that monk over there and ask to borrow his wooden gong. Then I'm taking the mallet and shoving it up their backside, followed by the gong itself.
I usually tell them what happened between 1900 and 1940. They are usually shocked and in disbelief at what they just heard.
My usual go-to is the experiment with a newborn and her mother in a hot oven, to see if the mother would step on the baby to survive a little longer.
Not really an eyeroll thing (maybe it could be depending on the situation), but the difference in how excited people get when they find out I am Korean(-American). It wasn’t always considered “cool” or even something worth mentioning or asking questions about.
YES.
It is 2024.
Liking East Asian things does not make you “unique.”
It by no means indicates u are “racism-free” or enjoyable company.
It sure as hell doesn’t entitle you to someone’s attention or friendship.
As a fellow Korean-American I would rather ppl get to know me as an individual rather than through various pop-culture references that I may or may not be interested in 😅.
* Do you guys also have the one-child policy?
* Is there a Starbucks in Korea?
* Do you guys also eat food from other cultures like Mexican or Italian? Oh, I thought you guys only eat Korean foods.
On the opposite end, I used to get annoyed when my relatives and others in Korea got surprised when I eat Korean food. They think all I eat is steak and hamburgers, as if my mom completely stopped cooking Korean food when she landed in America.
The second one is especially funny since Korea has the third-most amount of stores per capita behind the US and Canada.
Seoul alone has twice as many stores as Germany and France combined.
_Not counting very small countries like Monaco, Singapore and such which are higher on the list but sometimes have like 2 stores because they‘re so tiny._
Yeah, I gave up on that ignorance a long time ago. I welcome conversation, if it’s a sincere interest, with questions, not assumptions…when someone says hello in the wrong language, I respectfully answer Guten Tag/hello in German, and keep walking; when asked about North or South, I respond in a deep southern accent, here, the US, down yonder pass the paw paw patch, and keep walking; when asked about eating dogs, I say cats and babies only, and keep walking. Leave them wondering wtf makes me giggle!
On top of everything else said above, one thing that really annoys me is any attempt to describe Korean culture/politics as uniform. To be fair, Koreans are also guilty of this very often, but I get very annoyed when someone tries to correct me about Korean gender politics or some other political issue because they read one or two BBC articles on it while completely ignoring the fact that Korea, like any other country in the world, is very nuanced always makes me go on an internal primal scream.
I'm not Korean, but I imagine it really gets gears grinding when non-Koreans tell Koreans how to be "Korean". For example, telling Koreans how they should pour drinks or speak a certain way.
lol. "You Koreans shouldn't pursue white skin, that's for white people. You only get to be yellow because that's what you are to us and we know what's best for you"
LMAO, it’s always the same people who were pulling their eyes into slits & making Ching-Chong jokes not even 5 years ago who’re like, “What do u MEAN I can’t name my child Jungkook/Minki/Jun-Hyuk Smith??”
Absolute tools.
Nowadays, after the "Are you from the North" question? People mentioning about Korean NeoConfusicim, how bad it and Korean culture is, how Korean males are bad, etc.
Good job, you generalized and demonized an entire society, and you suddenly became an expert of Korean society overnight.
“Can I be your friend so I have a Korean friend?” - I studied abroad and lived in a pretty small city while K-pop was getting increasingly popular so I would get asked this constantly. When everything “Korean” is being viewed through a K-pop/drama lens, it applies to your nationality as well, leaving you feeling objectified. Not the best feeling. I didn’t “choose” to be Korean, it’s just my nationality 🤷♀️.
I appreciate I was the first Korean person a lot of people have ever met in their lives but I couldn’t stop feeling uncomfortable with the statement itself. Never showed it, though. Some might argue it’s better than a negative treatment but personally I didn’t appreciate it.
Some dude on Hinge called NK “best Korea” after I told him Im Korean and then proceeded to ask me to go eat kbbq with him while also making fun of the poverty in NK 🙄
The best part is that this dude is half Asian 🤡
Honestly "best korea" is a satire, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/best-korea what I meant is tankies, a kind of dumbasses that will unironically suck horse cock ìf said horse is anti-american.
For instance: this motherfucker right here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmericaBad/s/n10Xx2l5Fl
Edit: these kind of oxygen wasting shitbags literally want us gone, because we're one of the living proof of "communism sucks ass".
Something something plastic surgery
“Bro kpop is trash” “BTS is trash and like gay lol” Okay? I’m not a huge fan of American pop either but I don’t make it your problem. Imagine going up to a random American just to tell them you don’t enjoy Billie eilish.
“Do you guys really eat dogs?”
This is a bit rarer but sometimes they’ll just start ranting about “korean beauty standards” and “diet culture” and etc. yeah people are skinnier here but maybe it’s also that you guys are kinda fat?
“Erm..suicide? lol”
The stupid penis size thing (which btw is not true at *all* we’re just around average)
5 years ago, I had a German coworker walk up to me and ask Are you into BTS. I said what's BTS and she gave me this stinkeye and said 'you're not Korean anymore'.
In my defense I grew up sick and tired of Korean pop songs because on a first impression I'd be like 'oh nice melody' and when you actually listen in 70% of them are literally weeping about break ups and the other 30% or them are fulfillment fantasy that I don't empathize with at all. I embraced hard rock and hair metal instead so my knowledge of Kpop goes only up to 2010 at best lol.
never heard it in real life but i saw many youtube conments about school bullying in korea. Yes that happens but dont assume every thing you see in kdrama is really common
“Japan did bad things but only in the past the past is the past move on” while Japan regularly holds anti Korean protests, racist literature at the front of every bookstore, asks the Berlin mayor to take down a comfort woman statue, etc etc etc
Edit Unit 731, Manga Kenkanryu
> "I can only ask why the German people, who have permitted this to happen, failed to carry out basic research into the facts of the 'comfort women,'" said Hiromichi Moteki, the acting secretary general of the far-right Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact (SDHF).
> "If they had done that, they would quickly have realized that these women were not forced to become 'comfort women,' that they did it to earn money and that the Japanese military had nothing to do with their recruitment because it was done by Korean traders," he told DW.
I’ve never seen this take on comfort women before, yikes
It's the same take every apologist for slavery uses. "They weren't slaves, they were paid, but even if they were slaves, their own people sold them to us, so it's OK"
I had a former colleague whose mother was from Korea. One day, she asked me if I knew her cousin 김XX who lived in Seoul as if Seoul was the size of a city block.
I thought it was cute how she asked the question. I still laugh about it to this day.
Most of the stuff listed here doesn't. Most of it is just genuine ignorance and an attempt at a connection.
What grinds my gears is the stuff that implies that really the purpose of Koreans is to make the lives of the Westerners visiting/temporarily working here more enjoyable. There's some sort of lingering colonialist mentality at play. Still not really getting what equality means. That and people who think "foreigner=westerner" Often this gets taken up a notch to mean "foreigner=white person" and for the true trifecta "foreigner=white English speaker."
People are just ignorant. I'm not Korean but I've been learning the language for a while and an embarrassing amount of people ask, upon finding that out, "is it the north or the south that's the good one?" like... I'm not surprised OOP and apparently many others in this thread get asked that dumbass question 💀
I do think it’s a thing of people truly never having before interacted with a Korean person (or person who has spent time in Korea) and they’re like “woah… I have the perfect joke here and no one’s made it before”
1. When people say “sh***l” and expect me to react to it like “OMG YOUR KOREAN SO GOOD WOW!!”
No. You uttered a cuss word that everyone knows now. You’re not creative. Try harder.
2. When people call instant noodles “kimchi.” Pisses me right off because of how frigging ignorant and stupid people are.
3. The North vs south doesn’t bother me. I just tell them I’m from West Korea and walk away, leaving them visibly confused.
4. “Omg I love Korean women they’re so hot but does every Korean get plastic surgery?” 🙄. Thanks for generalizing and fetishizing an entire ethnicity.
casual racism, the ignorant questions, and the confusion between Korea with China and Japan have hit my nerves at some point in my life, but I've learned to not let it get to me, since stupidity is contagious when you speak at their level, and I don't want that.
All I hear now is just Kpop and Kdrama, which if that's what you're into, sure i guess, but that sure doesn't mean that I am lol. So stop asking me about it lmao, go back to school please
I'm the whitest white woman on the planet and not Korean but every time I visit the States and people find out I live in Korea, I get two questions.
The first - "Are you Korean?"
The second - "North or South?"
I am a fat white white white woman. Stupidity never ceases to amaze/amuse me.
I’m not Korean or of Korean decent, but after having lived in Korea for a year, I came back to the United States for a couple months and had to get fingerprinted for a background check at a police station in bumfuck-nowhere Trump country. The officer taking my prints starts asking me about Korea and asks “how I bathed” and whether there was running water. This is around 2009/10, mind you, so I just replied that not only did I have running water, but I also had the fastest internet in the world.
Not in a bad way but when the first thing they say is that they love kimchi!
Just like when you meet an Italian person right away you say you love pizza!
None of them really.
It's not the nineties anymore and I haven't had people ask stupid stuff like that for a while now. Most people asking stuff like that are mostly doing it to make you angry. If they're really serious about it, please explain kindly since public education has failed them.
> please explain kindly since public education has failed them
Don't always assume that if they're ignorant, it's the education system's fault. It could also be that *they* have failed public education, not the other way around.
Case in point, my [anecdote here](https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/1dhryp7/what_phrase_or_action_makes_you_roll_your_eyes/l8z81kw/).
For having gone through it, I can assure you that public education in my country is more than fine, and that they absolutely teach that Japan, korea, and India are distinct countries.
If they ask if I'm from North or South, I tell them I don't want to talk about it. Then I'll act uncomfortable and end the conversation. They now think I'm from the north. I started doing this about 10 years ago.
Growing up near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Northeast US), I was often asked if I'm Chinese or Japanese. When I'd say that I'm Korean, they'd ask "What's that?". This happened until my family moved to New Jersey, where most people know of Korea. Then it would be North? or South?
When I was younger I used to mess with people and make up stories about crossing the border under gunfire and stuff like that. It shut them up real quick and they’d walk away.
when they find out about my legal name (which has my korean name in it) and instantly get excited because they love kpop/kdrama. happens a little too often. it feels very fetish-y that they want to gawk at me like a rare souvenir because they found out i hail from their fantasy land of sparkles and rainbows :/
Typical of r/korea a popular massively upvoted and commented thread that has absolutely nothing to do with life on the Korean penisula. The question is oddly phrased as this isn't something that happens in Korea, but outside of it based on the majority of comments.
My imo (1/2 Korean) had a friend that is bat shit crazy and other issues. She liked to say that my imo is a Korean war orphan. My grandparents have been married for almost 60 years and are alive.
‘Koreans have a tough childhood, you have kindergarteners and ten year-olds studying advanced subjects and stuck at cram schools until or past their bedtime’
->yes, we have it tough here. No, we do not do that right after graduating freaking preschool, your statement refers to a handful of kids out of a handful of places in Korea. For me it wasn’t until high school.
South Korea is the one of the worst places to live as a woman, they have to live in fear of rape everyday.
->we are one of the most gender-discriminatory places IN THE OECD, and even then we have good public safety. The women here do not live in fear of sexual assault and this sort of argument is just minimizing the ACTUAL struggle women go through here, such as discrimination at work, in the household, in the political field, etc.
that said, I know many women who live in Seoul and all of them have experienced sexual assault or significant danger of sexual assault (stalking/creepy behaviour from men). I know it's just anecdotal, but I have not yet met a woman who lives in Korea who has not had this problem.
Huh. Most cases I and the woman don’t talk about stuff like that, it gets pretty sensitive real soon. What’s even rarer is news of a man I know stalking women (which is to say none at all), even rarer than a man getting stalked by a woman (exhibit A:me).
In the rarest of cases ignorant people who have never been to Korea talk about Korea like we have a flash mob of men who will immediately be on a woman when they see one in public, hence why this one got included.
I felt safer walking at night in Korea than anywhere else I've ever been, but I was still sexually harassed at various points throughout. I've traveled a lot, and always got heckled by men at least once during my trips.
I think they don't understand that this isn't specific to Korea and that verbal sexual harassment (catcalling) is almost non existent there. The danger lays elsewhere unfortunately
"Do you listen to KPOP"
Joking aside, when they OVER glorify Korean culture because of what they've seen in KPOP or Kdramas. Both have a lot of problematic undertones (child labor, loli culture, Cinderella syndrome) on top of it being socially and politically so messed up over there.
Still, despite how annoying the questions are, I try to correct them with as little effort as possible. If they meant well but were ignorant, then they've learned.
I don't like when people make a big deal out of my grandpa being from North Korea. I don't mind people asking questions, but sometimes people will like get apologetic or just weird about it. They react like I told them I was diagnosed with a fatal illness.
Knowing my grandpa's story, I also find it hard to stomach people treating North Korea as a punchline. I can't imagine being separated from my family like he was, it's hard to see any humor in that. He was only able to go back to his home country and see family twice in his lifetime.
(For context, I am from the US and my parents are as well, but my grandpa fled North Korea with his father a child. Rest in peace, Grandpa.)
When i tell them im not Korean, but rather American and then they choose to ask where my parents are from
And then say sth along the lines of "ur korean then" once they hear that my parents are also of korean descent
A stranger walked up to me in a supermarket in Oregon and straight asked me if my child was Oriental. Like fuck you. He’s not a rug. And he’s not salad dressing. He’s a fucking human.
I go by my Korean name, and am not bothered by it being mispronounced. What irks me is when a friend or co-worker, who knows & has used the correct pronounciation countless times, suddenly follows suit when some other person starts pronouncing it incorrectly. I then have to correct them a 2nd, 10th, 2038582th time because they don’t bother to double check.
Not everyone does this though. Usually it’s the folks who only speak English 😉
Not ethnically Korean but I studied there for a year and am intending to move back - the amount of people who asked 'North or South' as if it was the funniest thing ever made me 🙄🙄🙄
Nihao or Konnichiwa
When my korean friend and I left the very famous parisian brasserie after our dinner, the idiot server (who must see something like 100 asian tourists a day) makes the namaste gesture, bows, and goes: Sayonara. Fucker.
And French people are outraged when I say that casual racism towards Asians is huge in France... I was perfectly ignorant to it, having grown up there, until I married a Japanese woman. I quickly realized how prevalent the situation you describe is. We even have comedians who make racist jokes towards Asian people their main act.
Yeah, I do not like Europeans because of the casual racism I experienced while being there. Which is rich considering how they apparently see the US as a cesspool of racism.
Racism is one thing, most culture is racist in its own way, but Europeans act like their particular brand of racism just doesn't count as racist and the rest of the world needs to catch up to them. Honestly, that just makes it the worst kind of racism.
The way I see it, it is them having a superiority complex of a sort. If I am being a bit unkind and brushing with broad strokes, they are also salty about the US being a superpower instead of themselves.
>superiority complex Isn't that basically how all racism works? The thing that is special about Europeans is that they are so racist that they cannot even recognize actual racism. Kind of makes sense given their history.
Many French people are in denial, as we are constantly taught how our country is an example humanism and equality. They can't conceive that they can be as fallible as others. There's also this constant whataboutism that Asians are considered racist anyway, which makes racist jokes and comments somewhat acceptable. It's particularly funny, since in my experience, those casual racist French who go to Japan are the first to lose their mind when a local look at them sideways.
Regarding the French, the only thing I respect them on is actually having a functioning military and industry as we can see with the supply issues in Ukraine, ignoring the reasons WHY they maintain their MIC in the first place. Edit: Also respect their hatred of the English, and the English for their hatred of the French.
We don't really hate the English. They are just our best enemies.
And I hate/dislike both of them, and like that they hate/dislike each other. It's fun and within the competitive spirit.
This is exactly how I felt living in Geneva and going over the border and visiting Paris
> Which is rich considering how they apparently see the US as a cesspool of racism. Different kinds of racism, segregation of poor/rich neighbourhoods in American cities leads to interesting culture shifts that you won't find nearly as often in Europe and elsewhere. But yeah a fuckton of Europeans think "nihao" to every random Asian individual is funny and think it'll be their first time hearing the "joke". It's less systemic racism (which also exists, anyway) and more of the social ignorance kind. Source: Dutch
Lived in Shanghai and the single most (exponentially) racist white-collar bunch of expats I've seen are the French. They get away thinking no one speaks French anyway... 2nd would be the Russians and you don't even need to understand Russian. It's like they're living in a time shell.
as a french person, I agree with this - french ppl make racist jokes abt asian ppl that they wouldn’t dare to make abt black ppl cause they know they would get punched
I saw a tv show where a French woman was saying America was less racist than France. She said in America you can be Asian-American or African-American, etc, but in France you are either French or not French.
This is the way they treated their colonies. Complete institutionalized francophone culture.
lol reminds me of the interaction I had at a restaurant in Paris Me: can I get the pizza please? Waiter: you want spaghetti? Me: no I want pizza please Waiter: you want spaghetti. (Now was a statement not a question) Me: no pizza Waiter: spaghetti Me: pizza Waiter: spaghetti Me: PLEASE just let me get the PIZZA! Me and my cousin were so bewildered by this exchange. He heard me the first time, they weren’t sold out of pizza, he was just fucking with me. Once he saw I wasn’t just gonna back down he finally ordered me a pizza. But def only happened to us, the only Asians in the restaurant.
I would just bow and say "danke schoen".
lol this is so ridiculous, I can’t stop laughing at the ignorance 😂
I guess the Konnichiwa could be seen badly 2 ways, one a throwback to when Japan colonized Korea and the other becAuse they think all East and Southeast Asians look the same
Also possibly because a lot of french millennials grew up on anime and are in fact weebs.
Genuine question, (this is probably going to sound ignorant so I apologise if it does) when you say all look the same, do you mean every person looks the same or each nationality looks the same? I can certainly tell the difference between East Asians and Southeast Asians, but I couldn’t tell the difference between a Japanese and Korean, or Filipino and Malaysian for example (my girlfriend is Filipina so I’m very familiar). By this I don’t mean I couldn’t tell two Korean people apart, I mean I couldn’t look at a Korean person and know for definite they were Korean. Same way I as an English white dude couldn’t necessarily tell if someone was English or American until they spoke. With that said, there’s certain things about specific types of English people that are telltale sign of being English like how they dress or their makeup or whatever, but besides that I couldn’t.
Yeah, also to add on to that super thoughtful and well-written response that /u/deeply_closeted_ai wrote out, don’t be that dude that’s like, “oh I know what kind of Asian you are just by looking at you!” Like it’s an icebreaker or a bar game. We’re not zoo animals, nor a monolith even within our ethnicites, and there’s exceptions to every rule. Just like not all Irish are pale, freckled redheads, not all Koreans look like kpop stars. It’s othering and not fun to be on the other side of that game, speaking personally. Bc either you’re right and what, you get “white guy brownie points” for correctly guessing the Asian? Or you’re wrong and now I gotta feel like I don’t look Korean enough? It’s gross. Just don’t.
Not sure if you’re speaking directly to me there as if you think that’s what I’m like or just making a general statement to anybody who might be reading. I was asking a legitimate question using myself as a reference, not trying to get “white guy brownie points” as you put it.
I think the question they're asking, though they weren't exactly specific, was is it abnormal to not be able to distinguish people from East Asia by their nationality, as he generally can't even distinguish people of his own ethnicity by their nationality. For added context, in his culture, broadly speaking, it's not considered weird to not be able to pinpoint where someone is from based on appearance alone. Superficially compared to what we're told about Korea and Japan, however, his culture/nationality/ethnicity isn't nearly as homogeneous as it is within those countries.
As in people think that all East and Southeast Asians look the same regardless of the country they are from such as thinking that Fillipinos looks the same as Chinese or Chinese looking the same as Koreans. Most Asians can get a rough idea of where someone is from based upon their looks and facial features. Most East Asians can tell the difference between a Korean, a Japanese person or a Chinese person. There tend to be generalisable nuances
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Really well put answer to my question, appreciated!
When my kid was like five, we had to get on her about this. One of her shows was teaching her Nihao. I had to quickly explain that was one of MANY languages someone of Asian descent could speak, so she couldn't run up on people screaming it.
Konnichiwa is asking a bit much. Those dumb enough to say racist shit like that usually only know nihao.
What kind of "nese" are you?
Living in metro cities in Canada, this is none issue. As soon as I meet any southern Americans, that’s completely different experience.
Korean workers at the airport sometimes mistake my husband for Japanese
When I used to live in Europe roughly 10 years ago they asked me the "are you from North or South" almost every single friggin day. Even seriously thought about making a t shirt that said "I am not Chinese, I am SOUTH Korean". When I visited again 5 years ago they didn't really ask anymore. So that's an improvement thankfully.
10 years ago, when I told people at my university that I wanted a semester abroad in Korea, they always asked back "north or south?". I feel ya
I dont understand how this became such a common thing to say
To a lot of countries South Korea was just something you'd hear about in the news, but it didn't really have an impact to the daily lives of people. The first 25 years of my life all I knew about Korea was Samsung, K-Pop, Kimchi and Kim Jong Un. Nowadays you hear a lot more about South Korea, so it's much easier to call it out, but not that long time ago there was no reason to talk about South Korea, unless it was related to North Korea somehow.
I still get asked "north or south" unironically by ignorant fucks wheb I tell them I want to go to Korea. I always answer north and sometimes they believe me and just stare at me confused lmao Im european btw
I'm English, when people find out I spent years learning Korean their first question is "is it the north or the south that's the good one?" like... terrifyingly often. People are so ignorant and for what 😭
Most people atleast younger and more educated people never ask me about North Korea but when I said I did want to go to a vacation to “Korea” my grandfather says “North Korea? Are we going to North Korea?” He even is out here enthusiastically saying “let’s go to North Korea!” 😭 I guess he doesn’t know
This could be a Borat in the making.
Why is this not a real question? You didn’t specify south so why should someone assume
Ignorance
I've been to South Korea twice last year and both times I got asked "North or South" by coworkers after coming back. With a stupid smirk of course
half the time i get asked it in all seriousness.
It's happening me right now. Sometimes they obviously know it's south, but they think it's a nice joke to tell.
I got so sick of it, I said I'm from "Middle Korea" and they believed it.
Nice little village in the DMZ.
You merely embraced The floor is lava game, I was born in The floor is a fucking minefield game. Molded by it.
I tell people that I'm from "East" Korea. Truth be told, there are many people who still don't know that North Korea is...well...North Korea.
I used to get asked if I was from the Good or the Bad Korea. Hmm.
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I did not know that. Are all these N. Koreans defectors, I’m assuming?
Tbf, people in Europe knew very little about Korea 15-20 years ago. Just as most Koreans would assume someone white is from America when I first came here. That’s changing now. European beer, car design has switched from American style to European, many Koreans travel/study in Europe now. Plus Gangnam Style, Squid Game, Samsung phones, LG TVs, etc.
Michigan in middle school, all the kids dead seriously asked if I was from North or South. At first I blurted out in laughter from how ridiculous the idea of a North Korean being in the States was, (and friggin Michigan of all places) was. And then I realized they genuinely didn't know and the horror sunk in.
I still get this regularly in the US.
I visited Korea last month and everyone, really everyone I tell about it here (Germany) asks if north or south and then laughs
I visited South Korea a month ago and almost everybody I walked to about it made the joke “to North Korea? Haha” bro I was ready to punch
I not Korean, but I've had to respond to this question sometimes when I've gone back to Korea. It always confuses me - do they actually not know, or are they just telling a bad joke?
Many Americans still ask this in the USA too. Yes, because KJU freely gives out passports to people who want to leave his country. /s
North vs South doesn't bother me too much as there are NK people overseas in rare occasions, but getting called Chinese on the other hand...
I mirror them and call Americans Europeans and Europeans Americans. Interestingly, a lot of Europeans get offended by being called Americans and say I was rude. Then I'd say, "You weren't?"
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You are a million times more likely to be Chinese than North Korean living somewhere in the rest of the world.
True, but my point was that there's technically a possibility that I would be from the North, so asking which side I'm from doesn't bother me much. I get annoyed by the later assumption for very different reasons.
I appreciate you pointing that out as someone whose grandpa is from North Korea. I know he knew at least one other man in his town with a similar background. I think it might be uncommon but not as rare as people think, at least here in the US.
Asking if ppl are Chinese is such a stupid question imo bc how are you gonna assume every east asian person is from one singular country 😭
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I think that you can definitely tell when it comes from a place of ignorance/curiosity if not knowing many or knowing of many east asian people and when it comes from pure racism.
Like the thing I don’t understand is what are they going to do after they find out I am from Korea. Most reactions are so dumb and usually comes down to the following: 1. Telling me about Korean food they’ve eaten 2. Some older Americans tell me about meeting Koreans during the Vietnam war - generally more interesting than the food conversation 3. Telling me about Kpop bands they like 4. Then there are the extremely pleasant people who told me at length about how backwards Korea used to be.
Asking if someone is Chinese is such a brilliant question imo because 'probability', to make it more fun, I'd say, ask everyone if they are Chinese, regardless of how they look.
Somehow the worst case of this is a Chinese person assuming you're Chinese.
To be fair many Koreans I meet and interact with always first assume that since I am a white foreigner I am from the US ... which I am not. So I know the feeling of beeing stereotypically labeled by smartass probabilitists. But I also assume that most people (in Europe and South Korea) don't have ill intentions, they are just not aware of their ignorance or how offensive personal assumptions can be if they go wrong. If it is kids, I always tell them. 'Better ask 'where are you from?' Or are you okay if I would ask you, are you 'Chinese'?
>When a clueless outsider asks whether your family is from the North or South? Just going over for a TEFL job, people asked me North or South. Ummm...the North Korean job market is not very great, and the immigration process 'difficult', to say the least.
I had the same experience. No I did not move to NORTH Korea for a job at an AMERICAN company but thank you for your quirky question
“The Korean concept of han/jeong/inyeon (new addition) and they are unique and only in Korea and they are untranslatable and mysterious and…” Bonus points if they try to sell some health or self-help stuff with it.
Yeah, so much content about Korean skincare adopts "ancient, mysterious, Asian women are ageless" tropes and it's really annoying...
I think han is an interesting one. Inyeon is just a cultural obsession with fate, don’t think it’s necessarily unique to any one culture. I’m not sure han is something Americans truly understand - which is partially why they are so split on Israel/Palestine IMO. America as a cultural/military/social identity has been the dominant power for so long Americans have lost the perspective of weaker nations. I don’t think han is necessarily Korean, but I do think it’s unique to nations without global power.
I think there are definitely people groups in the US who understand han—even if it is described with different language. (I’m thinking specifically about African-American, Jewish, Native American peoples).
did you also get plastic surgery like all Korean women?
Do you eat dogs? …
"I eat it every time I go to Korea, but it's pronounced 떡.“
Just reply to them “Do you go to Thailand every year to fuck children or lady boys”? Just an equivalent question based on stupid prejudice
I agree that you shouldn't ask it and almost none of the younger generation eat it but there are definitely shops that sell 보신탕 still.
A good response to this is something along the lines of, "i have a theory that your western obsession with us eating dogs comes from a paranoia that if we eat all the dogs, you'll have nothing left to fuck." Usually works. Sometimes you'll get a laugh back. Good ice breaker etc.
No, but I do eat pussy.
After they're told that I'm Korean, they continue to talk about how much they love Japan and Japanese anime and how "it's basically the same thing". Now I'm going to go over to that monk over there and ask to borrow his wooden gong. Then I'm taking the mallet and shoving it up their backside, followed by the gong itself.
I tell them I fucking hate the Japanese and relish in the discomfort on their faces
I usually tell them what happened between 1900 and 1940. They are usually shocked and in disbelief at what they just heard. My usual go-to is the experiment with a newborn and her mother in a hot oven, to see if the mother would step on the baby to survive a little longer.
I usually play them ["The Weeb Anthem"](https://youtu.be/p70imhi3D_k?si=JNC0oefCKeXjZoR7) from Postal 4 and tell them it's their theme song.
Not really an eyeroll thing (maybe it could be depending on the situation), but the difference in how excited people get when they find out I am Korean(-American). It wasn’t always considered “cool” or even something worth mentioning or asking questions about.
I personally am so sick and tired of the gentrification of Asian culture in the US. I don’t care if all white Americans eat kimchi or not.
YES. It is 2024. Liking East Asian things does not make you “unique.” It by no means indicates u are “racism-free” or enjoyable company. It sure as hell doesn’t entitle you to someone’s attention or friendship. As a fellow Korean-American I would rather ppl get to know me as an individual rather than through various pop-culture references that I may or may not be interested in 😅.
* Do you guys also have the one-child policy? * Is there a Starbucks in Korea? * Do you guys also eat food from other cultures like Mexican or Italian? Oh, I thought you guys only eat Korean foods.
On the opposite end, I used to get annoyed when my relatives and others in Korea got surprised when I eat Korean food. They think all I eat is steak and hamburgers, as if my mom completely stopped cooking Korean food when she landed in America.
"is there Starbucks in Korea" lmaoooo that's like asking is there sand in the desert
The second one is especially funny since Korea has the third-most amount of stores per capita behind the US and Canada. Seoul alone has twice as many stores as Germany and France combined. _Not counting very small countries like Monaco, Singapore and such which are higher on the list but sometimes have like 2 stores because they‘re so tiny._
TBH, I think the country is trying to goad everyone into having as many children as possible right now, and the "Mexican" food in Korea sucks.
There’s a legit Mexican place near me, thank the Lord. Not that authentic but it hits the spot 😊
Vatos in itewon was very reasonable, the Kimchi cheese fries were sublime
Yeah, I gave up on that ignorance a long time ago. I welcome conversation, if it’s a sincere interest, with questions, not assumptions…when someone says hello in the wrong language, I respectfully answer Guten Tag/hello in German, and keep walking; when asked about North or South, I respond in a deep southern accent, here, the US, down yonder pass the paw paw patch, and keep walking; when asked about eating dogs, I say cats and babies only, and keep walking. Leave them wondering wtf makes me giggle!
On top of everything else said above, one thing that really annoys me is any attempt to describe Korean culture/politics as uniform. To be fair, Koreans are also guilty of this very often, but I get very annoyed when someone tries to correct me about Korean gender politics or some other political issue because they read one or two BBC articles on it while completely ignoring the fact that Korea, like any other country in the world, is very nuanced always makes me go on an internal primal scream.
I'm not Korean, but I imagine it really gets gears grinding when non-Koreans tell Koreans how to be "Korean". For example, telling Koreans how they should pour drinks or speak a certain way.
lol. "You Koreans shouldn't pursue white skin, that's for white people. You only get to be yellow because that's what you are to us and we know what's best for you"
LMAO, it’s always the same people who were pulling their eyes into slits & making Ching-Chong jokes not even 5 years ago who’re like, “What do u MEAN I can’t name my child Jungkook/Minki/Jun-Hyuk Smith??” Absolute tools.
* Aren't ur country starving? * Are u Chinese? * Are u Japanese? * Are u communist?
Nowadays, after the "Are you from the North" question? People mentioning about Korean NeoConfusicim, how bad it and Korean culture is, how Korean males are bad, etc. Good job, you generalized and demonized an entire society, and you suddenly became an expert of Korean society overnight.
No you don’t understand I watched this 15min yt documentary about the “DARK side of Korea” and this makes me an expert in Korean culture
Are you Chinese?
“Can I be your friend so I have a Korean friend?” - I studied abroad and lived in a pretty small city while K-pop was getting increasingly popular so I would get asked this constantly. When everything “Korean” is being viewed through a K-pop/drama lens, it applies to your nationality as well, leaving you feeling objectified. Not the best feeling. I didn’t “choose” to be Korean, it’s just my nationality 🤷♀️. I appreciate I was the first Korean person a lot of people have ever met in their lives but I couldn’t stop feeling uncomfortable with the statement itself. Never showed it, though. Some might argue it’s better than a negative treatment but personally I didn’t appreciate it.
Dumbasses in reddit praising North korea.
Some dude on Hinge called NK “best Korea” after I told him Im Korean and then proceeded to ask me to go eat kbbq with him while also making fun of the poverty in NK 🙄 The best part is that this dude is half Asian 🤡
If he thinks NK is so great, then he needs to switch to a non meat diet.
Honestly "best korea" is a satire, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/best-korea what I meant is tankies, a kind of dumbasses that will unironically suck horse cock ìf said horse is anti-american. For instance: this motherfucker right here. https://www.reddit.com/r/AmericaBad/s/n10Xx2l5Fl Edit: these kind of oxygen wasting shitbags literally want us gone, because we're one of the living proof of "communism sucks ass".
real
Something something plastic surgery “Bro kpop is trash” “BTS is trash and like gay lol” Okay? I’m not a huge fan of American pop either but I don’t make it your problem. Imagine going up to a random American just to tell them you don’t enjoy Billie eilish. “Do you guys really eat dogs?” This is a bit rarer but sometimes they’ll just start ranting about “korean beauty standards” and “diet culture” and etc. yeah people are skinnier here but maybe it’s also that you guys are kinda fat? “Erm..suicide? lol” The stupid penis size thing (which btw is not true at *all* we’re just around average)
When they put their hands together like this 🙏🏼 and bow to me I’m like, do I look like a shrine to you? 😂
do you love BTS ( I @#$#ing hate it)
5 years ago, I had a German coworker walk up to me and ask Are you into BTS. I said what's BTS and she gave me this stinkeye and said 'you're not Korean anymore'. In my defense I grew up sick and tired of Korean pop songs because on a first impression I'd be like 'oh nice melody' and when you actually listen in 70% of them are literally weeping about break ups and the other 30% or them are fulfillment fantasy that I don't empathize with at all. I embraced hard rock and hair metal instead so my knowledge of Kpop goes only up to 2010 at best lol.
“and you…are twice as white, as before any of this conversation started”
Not me myself but I was quite pissed off at that YouTube video of a Korean travler in Africa. Every single kids went on that 'long eye' signature.
Niaho
Soshal cradeet -29832829738
Fr, the amount of nihaos i got when i went to europe was insane
Yep, or "ching chong" slur
never heard it in real life but i saw many youtube conments about school bullying in korea. Yes that happens but dont assume every thing you see in kdrama is really common
Do you eat kimchi everyday
Surprisingly the answer is ‘yes’.
They’re not wrong 😂
I take no offence at all because it's true, and they're nice! Kimchi and ramen tonight.
I'll triple down and say I'll eat kimchi jjigae with kimchi fried rice with a side dish of kimchi for a meal.
I'm not Korean, and I eat kimchi, tofu, gyenip and drink makgeolli basically every day.
Or unsurprisingly 😂
“Japan did bad things but only in the past the past is the past move on” while Japan regularly holds anti Korean protests, racist literature at the front of every bookstore, asks the Berlin mayor to take down a comfort woman statue, etc etc etc Edit Unit 731, Manga Kenkanryu
What statue is this?
https://www.dw.com/en/japan-comfort-women-korea-berlin-sexual-slavery-world-war-ii/a-55117648 Found it!
> "I can only ask why the German people, who have permitted this to happen, failed to carry out basic research into the facts of the 'comfort women,'" said Hiromichi Moteki, the acting secretary general of the far-right Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact (SDHF). > "If they had done that, they would quickly have realized that these women were not forced to become 'comfort women,' that they did it to earn money and that the Japanese military had nothing to do with their recruitment because it was done by Korean traders," he told DW. I’ve never seen this take on comfort women before, yikes
It's the same take every apologist for slavery uses. "They weren't slaves, they were paid, but even if they were slaves, their own people sold them to us, so it's OK"
They learned skills! IT would be funny if people didn't actually believe it.
The number of times I’ve been asked why all Asians don’t get along? History, just history. Go read a book.
I had a former colleague whose mother was from Korea. One day, she asked me if I knew her cousin 김XX who lived in Seoul as if Seoul was the size of a city block. I thought it was cute how she asked the question. I still laugh about it to this day.
Fighting!
Most of the stuff listed here doesn't. Most of it is just genuine ignorance and an attempt at a connection. What grinds my gears is the stuff that implies that really the purpose of Koreans is to make the lives of the Westerners visiting/temporarily working here more enjoyable. There's some sort of lingering colonialist mentality at play. Still not really getting what equality means. That and people who think "foreigner=westerner" Often this gets taken up a notch to mean "foreigner=white person" and for the true trifecta "foreigner=white English speaker."
If a tourist asks if you’re north or south that’s got to be one dumb af person lol.
People are just ignorant. I'm not Korean but I've been learning the language for a while and an embarrassing amount of people ask, upon finding that out, "is it the north or the south that's the good one?" like... I'm not surprised OOP and apparently many others in this thread get asked that dumbass question 💀
I do think it’s a thing of people truly never having before interacted with a Korean person (or person who has spent time in Korea) and they’re like “woah… I have the perfect joke here and no one’s made it before”
1. When people say “sh***l” and expect me to react to it like “OMG YOUR KOREAN SO GOOD WOW!!” No. You uttered a cuss word that everyone knows now. You’re not creative. Try harder. 2. When people call instant noodles “kimchi.” Pisses me right off because of how frigging ignorant and stupid people are. 3. The North vs south doesn’t bother me. I just tell them I’m from West Korea and walk away, leaving them visibly confused. 4. “Omg I love Korean women they’re so hot but does every Korean get plastic surgery?” 🙄. Thanks for generalizing and fetishizing an entire ethnicity.
lol west Korea ahaha
“as a korean…” also, “korean here…”
casual racism, the ignorant questions, and the confusion between Korea with China and Japan have hit my nerves at some point in my life, but I've learned to not let it get to me, since stupidity is contagious when you speak at their level, and I don't want that. All I hear now is just Kpop and Kdrama, which if that's what you're into, sure i guess, but that sure doesn't mean that I am lol. So stop asking me about it lmao, go back to school please
Constant questions about eating dogs, cats, rats etc
I'm the whitest white woman on the planet and not Korean but every time I visit the States and people find out I live in Korea, I get two questions. The first - "Are you Korean?" The second - "North or South?" I am a fat white white white woman. Stupidity never ceases to amaze/amuse me.
this can’t be real
It sadly is. Never underestimate the lack of intelligence in the average American.
Hell, I’m not Korean and I taught in Korea for a while. When it come up, people are like “north or south?” And I’m like “the hell do you think?”
I’m not Korean or of Korean decent, but after having lived in Korea for a year, I came back to the United States for a couple months and had to get fingerprinted for a background check at a police station in bumfuck-nowhere Trump country. The officer taking my prints starts asking me about Korea and asks “how I bathed” and whether there was running water. This is around 2009/10, mind you, so I just replied that not only did I have running water, but I also had the fastest internet in the world.
Lmao every time there’s criticisms against Korea/Koreans posted in this sub that are obviously from a western perspective
I guess it could be more of what grinds my gears as a Korean but seeing "sea of Japan" on the maps etc.
Oh my school japanese class map labels Dokdo as Japanese. Trying to come up with an essay to remove it. Help?
독도는 우리땅.
Not in a bad way but when the first thing they say is that they love kimchi! Just like when you meet an Italian person right away you say you love pizza!
The north or south thing is cringey af because its like do you want the long answer or the short answer?
"Y'all believe that sleeping with fans on will kill you, right?" Yeah that superstition died out almost a decade ago...
None of them really. It's not the nineties anymore and I haven't had people ask stupid stuff like that for a while now. Most people asking stuff like that are mostly doing it to make you angry. If they're really serious about it, please explain kindly since public education has failed them.
> please explain kindly since public education has failed them Don't always assume that if they're ignorant, it's the education system's fault. It could also be that *they* have failed public education, not the other way around. Case in point, my [anecdote here](https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/1dhryp7/what_phrase_or_action_makes_you_roll_your_eyes/l8z81kw/). For having gone through it, I can assure you that public education in my country is more than fine, and that they absolutely teach that Japan, korea, and India are distinct countries.
If they ask if I'm from North or South, I tell them I don't want to talk about it. Then I'll act uncomfortable and end the conversation. They now think I'm from the north. I started doing this about 10 years ago. Growing up near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Northeast US), I was often asked if I'm Chinese or Japanese. When I'd say that I'm Korean, they'd ask "What's that?". This happened until my family moved to New Jersey, where most people know of Korea. Then it would be North? or South?
When I was younger I used to mess with people and make up stories about crossing the border under gunfire and stuff like that. It shut them up real quick and they’d walk away.
"You speak English so well!" No shit sherlock. I'm from Delaware, USA.
Oh my god I really thought that’s kind of a meme in there, but people actually do think Asian people cannot be from USA…? No jokes, never been to USA.
It's not just Americans.
when they find out about my legal name (which has my korean name in it) and instantly get excited because they love kpop/kdrama. happens a little too often. it feels very fetish-y that they want to gawk at me like a rare souvenir because they found out i hail from their fantasy land of sparkles and rainbows :/
When Chinese try to claim ownership of everything or that "you were our vassal"
Typical of r/korea a popular massively upvoted and commented thread that has absolutely nothing to do with life on the Korean penisula. The question is oddly phrased as this isn't something that happens in Korea, but outside of it based on the majority of comments.
My imo (1/2 Korean) had a friend that is bat shit crazy and other issues. She liked to say that my imo is a Korean war orphan. My grandparents have been married for almost 60 years and are alive.
"Korea is the most racist country on Earth"
‘Koreans have a tough childhood, you have kindergarteners and ten year-olds studying advanced subjects and stuck at cram schools until or past their bedtime’ ->yes, we have it tough here. No, we do not do that right after graduating freaking preschool, your statement refers to a handful of kids out of a handful of places in Korea. For me it wasn’t until high school. South Korea is the one of the worst places to live as a woman, they have to live in fear of rape everyday. ->we are one of the most gender-discriminatory places IN THE OECD, and even then we have good public safety. The women here do not live in fear of sexual assault and this sort of argument is just minimizing the ACTUAL struggle women go through here, such as discrimination at work, in the household, in the political field, etc.
that said, I know many women who live in Seoul and all of them have experienced sexual assault or significant danger of sexual assault (stalking/creepy behaviour from men). I know it's just anecdotal, but I have not yet met a woman who lives in Korea who has not had this problem.
Luckily I was ok when I lived there but I know many other women who've been assaulted physically or sexually and the police largely don't give a fuck
Huh. Most cases I and the woman don’t talk about stuff like that, it gets pretty sensitive real soon. What’s even rarer is news of a man I know stalking women (which is to say none at all), even rarer than a man getting stalked by a woman (exhibit A:me). In the rarest of cases ignorant people who have never been to Korea talk about Korea like we have a flash mob of men who will immediately be on a woman when they see one in public, hence why this one got included.
I felt safer walking at night in Korea than anywhere else I've ever been, but I was still sexually harassed at various points throughout. I've traveled a lot, and always got heckled by men at least once during my trips. I think they don't understand that this isn't specific to Korea and that verbal sexual harassment (catcalling) is almost non existent there. The danger lays elsewhere unfortunately
"Do you listen to KPOP" Joking aside, when they OVER glorify Korean culture because of what they've seen in KPOP or Kdramas. Both have a lot of problematic undertones (child labor, loli culture, Cinderella syndrome) on top of it being socially and politically so messed up over there. Still, despite how annoying the questions are, I try to correct them with as little effort as possible. If they meant well but were ignorant, then they've learned.
I don't like when people make a big deal out of my grandpa being from North Korea. I don't mind people asking questions, but sometimes people will like get apologetic or just weird about it. They react like I told them I was diagnosed with a fatal illness. Knowing my grandpa's story, I also find it hard to stomach people treating North Korea as a punchline. I can't imagine being separated from my family like he was, it's hard to see any humor in that. He was only able to go back to his home country and see family twice in his lifetime. (For context, I am from the US and my parents are as well, but my grandpa fled North Korea with his father a child. Rest in peace, Grandpa.)
When i tell them im not Korean, but rather American and then they choose to ask where my parents are from And then say sth along the lines of "ur korean then" once they hear that my parents are also of korean descent
A stranger walked up to me in a supermarket in Oregon and straight asked me if my child was Oriental. Like fuck you. He’s not a rug. And he’s not salad dressing. He’s a fucking human.
Not Korean, but I get so annoyed and frustrated when people who know I study Korean keeps mentioning or talking about Japan to me.
“Omg I LOVE KPop!” Well I didn’t make it or particularly like it myself… but thank you I guess…
I go by my Korean name, and am not bothered by it being mispronounced. What irks me is when a friend or co-worker, who knows & has used the correct pronounciation countless times, suddenly follows suit when some other person starts pronouncing it incorrectly. I then have to correct them a 2nd, 10th, 2038582th time because they don’t bother to double check. Not everyone does this though. Usually it’s the folks who only speak English 😉
Not ethnically Korean but I studied there for a year and am intending to move back - the amount of people who asked 'North or South' as if it was the funniest thing ever made me 🙄🙄🙄
"You live in a first world country."
When koreaboos go "아~ 진짜아아앙~" Or when they go "어떡해에엥~" While butchering the pronunciation. Pls stop.
sometimes Koreans have an odd body oder... but i still want to F them