As a Korean in his early 30s, it makes me laugh when I see people comment or post about how racist and prejudiced Koreans are in Korea, especially people from Western countries. I laugh, not because it’s false, but because they fail to realize that foreigners living in the US and Europe are experiencing the exact same thing, if not worse.
Are there prejudiced, racist, old-fashioned people in Korea? Yes. But no more than that in the US, or in any other country. In fact, I would argue that some of the racism Asians face in Western countries are even worse than what foreigners face in Korea. I’ve visited MANY countries where people will still do the squinty eyes at me in and physically say things like “ching-chong” to my face.
I’ve also brought several of my friends from high school and college (white, black, latino) to Korea where my family lives (mostly Busan and Changwon, but some other southern regions as well), and they’ve never had any extremely discriminatory actions. We got turned down at a nightclub once because there were foreigners in the group, but other than that nothing extremely notable.
The whole “Koreans are so racist and prejudiced” thing seems more like a lack of self-reflection to me, but I’d love to hear why people think Koreans in Korea are so much more prejudiced than others.
submitted by /u/LooTeRgetLooTeD
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