HT to Korea Beat for translating the Chosun Ilbo’s response to the avalanche of criticism to its week-long attack on foreign teachers.
Still, I wonder if the typical response to their barrage wasn’t a harrassing cell phone message, but perhaps something more reasonable, such as the huge amount of criticism expressed over blogs, newspapers, and other legitimate sources. Once again, offer the most inflammatory and extreme examples to typify an entire community’s response. Bascially, the response from foreigners was summed up by either simplistic remarks, foreigners completely agreeing with the paper, or harassing the reporter in a sexual way.
No one out there had any other response? No one mentioned statistics? Or lack thereof? Or the human rights report? Or Ban Ki-Moon’s own agreement that HIV testing as a response to these reports is a human rights violation? The sheer non-newsworthiness of all this business? Anything?
Leave it to the Chosun Ilbo to mention none of the real issues, typify the foreigner response with extreme or simply dumb examples, and report that strange, random web sites that supposedly we foreigners are reading to seduce Korean women have any standing in the foreign community, while completely ignoring the responses from the many sites that actually DO.
It reminds me a little of this thread.
The basic response goes like this: “Hey, here’s someone who said something stupid. Let’s make him or her a representative of an entire group despite how diverse the group might actually be.”
To be fair, a lot of expat blogs on Korea have just as much, if not more, of a biased perspective of Korea, with some even going as far as to use a blanket statement of, “Koreans are racist.” Now, of course, a blog isn’t in the same league as a national news source, but it is one of the primary sources of exposure to Korea for English-speaking foreigners outside of the country.
Still, with a week long barrage of hate-filled news pieces targeting English teachers throughout the country, what would the Chosun Ilbo have expected? In a country so famous for its netizen rage, you’d think that getting a nasty text message would be the natural progression of this mudslinging.
If you would like Ms. Chae’s phone number, I have it. She pretended not to speak English and handed the phone off to a very terse male friend who also could not speak English. I guess she’s only brave when she has a computer and a newspaper to hide behind. Perhaps they will print her photo so she can broadcast her cowardice even more publicly.
The blogosphere has come to South Korean newspapers. Spin and invective have replaced argument. It was a valiant, if naive, effort, trying to fight spin with facts.
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The continual output of inaccurate articles about the foreign community is a problem that needs to be rectified. One hopes this can also be a learning experience where foreigners understand a bit more about racist dynamics in America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. But given the tone, I doubt it. It seems like people are just overly sensitive.