Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.
White men and Korean woman
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By Jason Lim
At the risk of dating myself, I taught English in a major language institute in Seoul for two years in the mid-1990s.
In fact, for a brief but very interesting period of time (right at the time the Asian financial crisis hit Korea), I was the manager in charge of recruiting native English-speaking instructors for my institute, which meant that I came in personal contact with many young American, Canadian, and Australian men passing through Asia and moonlighting as English conversation instructors. I say moonlighting because many of them were obviously doing their “travel around the world” thing and trying to make enough money to go on to the next exotic Asian destination.
And yes, they were mostly white men. This also isn’t surprising since there are far more male instructors than women, and Korean institutes would not hire any native English speakers who were not white. I remember being scolded for hiring an impeccably qualified Korean American girl who had just graduated from UCLA because she wasn’t white and therefore was not as marketable.
And yes, they were also trying to sleep with local girls, probably with as many as possible. This really shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone. After all, healthy men in their mid-to-late 20s are not exactly known for their sexual self-control. If they can get it, they will take it.
And yes, they didn’t lack for Korean female attention. To begin with, conversation classes are social gatherings disguised as education; in this social gathering, the instructor is the BMOC by default, the alpha male so to speak. Also, I am sure that the white, native English speakers are somewhat exotic and attractive to young Korean women who were starting to be curious about the world.
And yes, some of them were ignorant jerks. They were probably losers in their own countries who, by the lucky virtue of being raised in a country that spoke English, attained an undeserved social status that often went to their heads. They would boast loudly of sleeping with countless Korean women in vulgar terms and behave as if they were God’s gift to Korean women. They were caricatures of the worst stereotypes of native English-speaking instructors popular in Korea.
And probably some of these same types of jerks probably had the bright idea ― fueled by wild party stupor and oversized sense of entitlement ― to videotape themselves assaulting a drunken Korean girl in an Itaewon bar. Then this video got written up in a Washington Post blog post and hell broke loose among Korean netizens whose comments mainly focused on two points. One, expats are sexual predators who prey on young, naïve Korean women who should be protected and; two, Korean women who hang out with expats are loose wannabe’s who deserve all the abuse that they get.
The fact these two points are inherently contradictory is beside the point. They all come from the same place of prejudice.
As I admitted above, there were total jerks among the native English-speaking faculty. However, I also saw many expats who took their jobs very professionally and their relationships (with mostly Korean women) very seriously. Many of them had even settled down with kids. In short, the expat community was as diverse in their personalities and experiences as any plural community. Sure, they shared physical attributes in that they were mostly white males, but that was about it.
And please stop calling the kettle black if you are a pot. There were Korean and Korean American instructors who were just as sexually voracious and morally decrepit. Don’t generalize a certain behavior to a group based on looks and place of origin. That’s racism.
Also, talking about protecting young women, prostitution is rampant here. Korea is the only country (that I know of) in which the traditional red, white, and blue barbershop poles don’t signify a gruff old man ready to give you an army crew cut but a place to get a quick sexual favor. And the poor, helpless Korean women need protection from a couple of white dudes in bars? Really?
These criticisms only show that, when it comes to women, the underlying attitude is that Korean woman are not individual human beings with the ability to make their own decisions (and mistakes) but are de facto property of Korean men, to be protected, controlled, and owned. Such self-serving and xenophobic sense of protection is both patronizing and offensive to women.
True, what happened in the video is disgusting. The perpetrators should be ashamed of themselves. But guess what? Women, even Koreans, are free to choose whom they hang out and sleep with. Sure, they will often make poor choices based on their foolish expectations and inexperience, but they will make their own choices nonetheless. They don’t need to be “protected” against bad decisions.
Incidents like this one shouldn’t be used to limit their choices on the most personal decisions of their lives. Moreover, incidents like this shouldn’t be used to fuel racism that paints everyone with the same brush.
Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, engagement and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook/jasonlim2000 and @jasonlim2012.