By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

Hiram Chege, 21, sophomore student from Kenya at university in Seoul, sometimes experiences the sense of alienation and gets hostile stares from his Korean peers.

``People here seem very curious about where I am from and why I chose Korea to study,’’ Chege said. ``Friends from my home country say they also experienced the same situations as I do.’’

Bangladesh student Prabir Das, who is doing a masters course at Seoul National University said Korean people tend to ignore Southeast Asians, while they feel inferior to Caucasians.

``Some of my Korean friends say we have strange odor. This kind of remark makes me feel unpleasant even though they are my friends. I guess they cannot say that kind of thing to their Western friends,’’ Das said.

Their sense of discomfort is not groundless as such prejudice has been revealed in a recent paper by Bang Hee-jung, a professor of Ewha Womans University. The paper looked into ``differences in explicit and implicit racial attitudes between Korean and foreign college students.’’

For the paper, the professor surveyed 121 Korean students and 53 foreign students in Seoul and found that Koreans have a bias against non-Caucasian foreigners.

When the Koreans were asked to grade on bias and preference, white marked minus 0.25 and black and Southeast Asian recorded minus 0.51 and minus 0.55 respectively, indicating locals have hold South Asians, blacks and white Westerners in low esteem. In addition, none of the three groups received a plus grade, meaning that local students have a bias against non-Koreans.

During the survey, the professor showed various human faces to students and ask them to describe their feelings toward them such as happiness, peacefulness, annoyance, hatred.

In the case of foreign students, they gave 0.12 points to Caucasians, minus 0.07 to black people and minus 0.15 to Southeast Asians, indicating that foreign students bear less biased views on other races. Above zero is a favorable response

``Koreans are strongly haunted with the perception of homogeneity and hold an exclusionary attitude toward other races. While they feel superior to black people and Southeast Asians, they feel inferior to Caucasians,’’ Bang said.

The professor also asked the sampled Korean students what races they want to make friends with. Out of a full score of five, Koreans got 3.96; Caucasian, 3.31; blacks, 2.89; and Southeast Asian, 2.84. This indicates that Koreans are more biased against South Asians rather than black people.

In the case of foreign students, they gave 4.34 points to Korean students, 3.48 to Caucasians, 3.43 to black students and 3.7 to Southeast Asians.

``We should educate Korean students not to have a bias on black and Southeast Asians. My research also found it is more effective to educate children when they are younger to get rid of prejudice against other races,’’ Bang said.

kswho@koreatimes.co.kr