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Blackface, Korean Style
10/29/07
Blackface, Korean Style
A few days ago I turned on the TV and found a show called HEY HEY HEY! (As in Fat Albert's "Hey, hey, hey!") Actually, I don't know the name of the show, but it was set at HEY HEY HEY club.
On the show were Koreans singing Ray Charles' songs.
In blackface.
I was discussing this later with Good Man, who didn't approve (of course), but who argued that Koreans don't know better. I called him on that. I argued that Korea can use that excuse for one second, and that second is long up and passed.
Before I came here, there were the Bubble Sisters. They are a group of Korean girls who sing pop songs in blackface, while wearing pajamas and sporting curlers in their hair.
Then we have the Hitler Bar (of which there have been a few!) and Korean companies very recently using Hitler as an advertising image. Oh, but who cares about Nazis? "[...]at least they dressed well." Recently a school had an international festival with a parade. One guess as to who and what represented Germany.
One of the theme parks used to run an ad with an "African" running around with a spear yelling "tika tika!"
When Colbert criticized Korean singer Rain in one of the funniest videos I've ever seen, Koreans freaked out. Had Colbert done it wearing yellow grease paint, with his eyes taped back into little slits, Koreans would have actually had a good reason. But, oh, no, we don't know better, they collectively claim.
Korean politicians claim that Korea is "international" now that a whopping 2% of it is "foreign." (Most of which is coming from Asian day workers and Asian women marrying South Korean farmers because there aren't enough females here due to the preference for male children.)
They want their economy to be greater (currently 12th GDP), bigger, better! Come on! This is Dynamic Korea: Hub of Asia!
They want to be Korea, Sparkling!
And yet... Koreans still routinely prefer white native English speakers over non-white ones, with a hogwon recently using "If you're white, you're alright!" as it's advertising slogan. Asians (including kyopos, ethnic Koreans raised abroad) also have a problem getting hired here.
My province's textbooks (I think the nation's textbooks) have one (or two, if it's a really special lesson) token black characters in them. These characters have red cheeks, big lips, and dreads. Always dreads. And they like basketball! Our province provided "international" map shows the sole African wearing a grass skirt, no shoes, big gold earrings and! And! He's carrying a spear! (I'm shocked they named the token characters Peter and Thomas instead of Jamal and Malcolm.) Their white characters are almost all blond, and amazingly, even their little cartoon Asian characters all have "big" eyes. Wait, except for the Japanese, who have "small" eyes. A little self-hatred, perhaps?
They have an ad for black bean tea featuring a black guy (big, fat, with an Afro, of course) rapping. The bean is black! The guy in the ad must be black! YES! We are sooooooo multi-cultural and international and sparkling!
And I'm going off about how Korea thinks it's so sparkling, dynamic, and hubbish and Good Man is just nodding. I know Good Man is not racist. He's also not homophobic, which is somewhat amazing. But we're talking and he says, "I don't think I would have a problem with African-Americans."
"No, of course not, why would you? Have you ever—" I was going to ask if he'd ever had a problem, but I suddenly switch gears, "Have you ever talked to a black person?"
"No. Not in real life."
I hit my head. "You've never met a black person?"
"No. I haven't had the opportunity."
I know he's right. He would have to specifically seek out a black person (or hang out in Itaewon) to meet them in this country. But still, I can't believe it. "You've never met a black person," I mutter.
"It's not my fault."
"I know, I know."
Sometimes I can't wrap my head around this country.
8 comments
Yesterday, I was getting some things from a Tibetan import store (I was looking for something nice to wear to an outing). The lady in the shop (who was Nepalese, I found out later) *totally* ignored me until the white people left the store (whom she followed around like a puppy, trying to help)!
I don't know if her bias was entirely due to race though...I'm pretty young looking for my age and a bit scrappy too. Looking through a rack of some clothes, she came over and told me that they might be a bit out of my price range, and pointed me to the sale rack.
He behavior was so blatant, that I wasn't even offended, more about to laugh in disbelief.
Wasn't there a big fuss a while ago about Angelina Jolie putting on paint to play Daniels pearls wife??!
This post is great, I feel like commenting on almost every line.
The future looks pretty bright though. Remember it has only been a few years in the grand scheme of things that we have been able to travel by commercial air travel to different nations, communicate instantly anywhere on this planet, and had access to media content (film, television, music, etc.) that deals with cultures from around the world. Change takes time, but it is coming quicker and quicker, no matter what those intolerant religious leaders think. Thank you satellite TV.
BTW, it wasn't until I was in college before I realized that some of the world's greatest films aren't from the United States. I don't know many people in my neck of the woods in South Texas who have ever even seen a Korean film. Sadly, most of my family members have only seen foreign films that I have forced on them, like Amelie, Every Man For Himself and God Against All, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Das Boot, No Man's Land, The Tin Drum, Rashomon, and The Bicycle Thief.
My students' heads spun off into a new dimension when they found out one of my former high school students who went to Harvard was Nigerian.
I plan on bringing in a yearbook from my school back home at some point, to show them what Americans really look like. 'Cause to be honest, even most black celebs, especially the females, are white-ified (hair straightened, skin lightened, etc.).
Poor Good Man. You need to make him travel more.
On a side note, nothing I've seen here has been more disturbing than Korean hip hop bands with Bob-Marley style dreads.
Living in Toronto (arguably Canada's most multi-cultural city), the issue of race doesn't even register in my mind anymore. That's not to say that racism ISN'T present here (because it still is), but for the most part our diversity is something we celebrate, and not something that keeps us apart.
That being said, I'm Filipino-Chinese-Canadian. Having been raised in Canada, English is my first language, and also my field of study. Which is why...
It makes me sad to think that when I do go to Korea in the future to teach, the colour of my skin will be a factor in my eligibility to be hired. That's not to say that I didn't know Koreans preferred Caucasians to teach English. Being Asian myself, I'm conscious of the Asian-mentality of "the lighter your skin colour, the better."
Still, it doesn't make it any less disheartening, and myself, any less qualified to teach (technically speaking).
As for the portrayal of black people in Korea (and in other Asian countries), I don't even know what to say. No matter what justifications (excuses) there are, seeing someone "dress up" as a black person just doesn't sit right.
Nice post you have here. The excuse that they didn't know any better doesn't really fly anymore. Read the Metropolitician's post about the Bubble Sisters and how meticulously they were designed to represent stock stereotypes.
I think that people here just don't care whether they offend anyone. Whether it comes down to language---using negro or nigger in books, for example---or images like blackface, the blood flag, or other ethnic stereotypes you find in the papers, or the nonsensical English you find all over the place . . . it seems to me like an issue of pride. They don't want to consult with other people to determine if what they're doing is right, appropriate, or accurate. Now, I think political correctness has gone way overboard back home, but what you have here is evidence of a very narrow view of the outside world that really has to go before South Korea lives up to its billing as a country that "embraces" foreigners.
It's such a widespread problem, though. I mean, you've got textbooks with blackface skits and shoddy cultural tips. You've got teachers passing these views along uncritically, adding their own biases into the mix. You've got books and TV programs reinforcing the exoticness of other cultures by using crude stereotypes in place of intelligent depictions. And that's not even getting into the stuff that's blatantly TRYING to be offensive. Hell, even the seemingly innocent "we have four seasons," "Korean food is so spicy," "Can you use chopsticks," "Koreans are the kindest people in the world," etc., that are the staples of grade school textbooks speak to the otherness imposed on outsiders, an image that is, evidentally, already firmly entrenched in children's minds given the way they talk about Japan, Africa, and practically every other place on the globe.
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