Living in harmony with differences
By Lee Eung-tae
Korea has been moving toward a multicultural nation. The country has a couple of unique reasons for embracing multiculturalism.
One of the conspicuous reasons is the deeply ingrained preference for male offspring, which has caused a gender imbalance. As young males outnumber females, many single men have had to take foreign wives. Another reason is the chronic lack of Koreans willing to take ``3D” (difficult, dirty, dangerous) jobs. Whatever the reasons, Koreans are, in a sense, living in a melting pot where people of different cultures should live in harmony.
So I think everyone in the community needs to appreciate and respect multiculturalism, which implies the right of immigrants to live with dignity.
However, a recent incident when an Uzbek-Korean lady was denied entry to a sauna induces me to think that Korea still has a long way to go before realizing the ideal of living in harmony.
According to an article published in The Korea Times on Oct. 13, a naturalized Korean woman was refused entry to a public bath because she looked different from the average Korean, and she might contaminate the water with AIDS.
How humiliated she must have been! This outrageous case seems to show how most Koreans are affected by outmoded, misleading stereotypes. Like it or not, the reality is that Korea cannot prosper without embracing differences.
Many shameful cases of social disharmony between native and non-native Koreans still occur, causing sensations throughout the country.
A year ago, a Vietnamese woman was killed by her paranoid husband just days after her arrival in Korea. This triggered prompted mass outrage and a call for immediate measures to address the horrific abuses perpetrated by Korean husbands married to foreign women.
A couple of months ago, a naturalized wife from the same country was indicted on charge of attempting to poison her mother-in-law, which earned her great sympathy from people at the thought of how awfully she must have been abused before she committed the crime.
Another humiliating case was that of an Indian professor suffering harsh, abusive and racial language in a bus. I could vividly feel how indignant he was when he heard the disdainful remark, ``What a disgusting odor! You are dirty!”
I don’t believe that most Koreans are hostile to foreigners to the extreme of xenophobia. Whenever I encounter these reports of racial discrimination, I cannot help thinking that Koreans need to change their perspective on multiculturalism.
It doesn’t make sense to claim that Korea is now an advanced country when they are still perceptually exclusive and stubbornly closed minded like an oyster shut tight, repelling whatever appears to be different and alien.
Most Koreans are good natured enough to overcome such social friction. Koreans prudently overcame deep-rooted localism through mutual understanding.
If Koreans accept that their society is much more diverse than before, and many physically and culturally different people have come to live with us, they can overcome the blind, prejudiced hostility toward immigrants and realize friendly relationships between Koreans and hyphenated Koreans.
To create such an amicable multicultural society, Koreans need to change perceptions and accept immigrants as members of the family, just as they were embraced as lovely sons and daughters back in their original homelands.
I understand this cannot change in a day, but I am sure Koreans’ innate kindness will eventually triumph, and Koreans will live in a genuine multicultural society.
The writer is an English teacher in Gimhae Girls' High School in South Gyeongsang Province. He can be reached at eungtae@gmail.com.