Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times, as well as editor of the Foreign Community page and curator of the Korea Times Archive. If you have suggestions for possible articles, or wish to contribute articles yourself, contact jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr.
Korea Encounters Reacting to Vietnamese 'anti-Koreanism' in 1967
A poster of the Vietnam 1967 National Day Football Tournament / Courtesy of Nguyen Mac Thy
By Jon Dunbar
By Matt VanVolkenburg
A few weeks ago, an online furor was created when Filipina American social media star Bella Poarch uploaded a video of herself sporting a tattoo featuring an image similar to Japan's Rising Sun flag. In response to criticism by Koreans, she apologized and promised to cover it with a new tattoo, but some netizens hurled racist comments at Filipinos in general, who responded with an online 'Cancel Korea' movement.
This was not the first time such regrettable behavior had engendered a backlash against Koreans in Southeast Asia, however. In 1964 Korea began sending troops and civilian contractors to participate in the Vietnam War, but by late 1967 it became clear that some of the civilians had worn out their welcome.
Reflecting a dynamic that would have been familiar to Koreans in their sometimes-fractious dealings with the U.S. military presence in Korea, the local press reacted to this development in various ways.
On Dec. 5, 1967, The Korea Times reprinted a Donga Ilbo editorial which stated that it was “highly displeased” that weeks earlier Vietnamese spectators had “showed unexpectedly anti-Korean sentiment” during the final game of a 10-day soccer tournament, the South Vietnam Independence Cup. During the game, Vietnamese spectators cheered Australian players while jeering at the Koreans. This was particularly shocking to the Donga Ilbo considering that Korea had sent 48,000 soldiers and 12,000 technicians to Vietnam.
Days later, a Korea Times editorial regretted that an influential Vietnamese newspaper had referred to “ugly” Koreans and stated that “Koreans in Vietnam do not pay for food, strike Vietnamese people with fists and fool the Vietnamese women,” adding “Such misconduct by Koreans can be found everywhere in Vietnam.”
The Korea Times was mystified by the description of Koreans' “colonialist” attitudes, something, a Vietnamese editorial noted, that “the Koreans themselves have experienced so bitterly in their own past history.”
Much like the Donga Ilbo, which called for “concrete evidence of such incidents, if any,” The Korea Times described the reports as “exaggerated” and worried that the Vietnamese might be “misled by the report to brand Koreans as nothing but undesirable.” It ended by hoping the Vietnamese would “correctly evaluate the role of the Koreans in their society.”
An image of the Korea-Vietnam football match in 1967, printed in The Korea Times Nov. 15, 1967. / Korea Times Archive
Unlike these editorials, the Joongang Ilbo noted days later that the commander of South Korean forces in Vietnam had written to the Korean defense minister that “frequent misdeeds of some Korean civilians living in Vietnam may nullify the good achievements of 45,000 fighting men.” The newspaper called on the government to take immediate action to counter the bad impression Koreans were leaving and proposed that “the government not hesitate, if necessary, to spend some of the money we earn in Vietnam by dispatching on [sic] a highly qualified working force.”
The Daihan Ilbo concurred, saying that it was “deplorable that some 'ugly Koreans' have damaged Korea's image in the eyes of the South Vietnamese people” and called for better “selection of the civilian working force to go to Vietnam.” This is not surprising, considering that days earlier the newspaper had reported on the 589,374 Korean nationals living abroad (89 percent of whom were in Japan) and opined that “Koreans abroad must keep in their minds that they represent Korea in the international society. They must behave and speak in such a way as to receive respect from foreigners.”
In a letter to the Chosun Ilbo, a Seoul resident wrote, “When I first heard about the poor treatment of the Korean team by Vietnamese, I couldn't control my anger,” but he ultimately argued that there was a need to deal strongly with “ugly Koreans” who were tainting any good work the Korean military may have been doing in Vietnam.
More than a week after its first editorial, the Donga Ilbo changed its tone somewhat, accepting that the reports were valid after all, but also asserting that it was “very regrettable to hear that many Vietnamese have misunderstood the Koreans there.”
Amid all of this hand-wringing in the media over Vietnamese “anti-Korean sentiment,” however, it appears the newspapers left one key element out of the story. According to William Nguyen, who spent over a year and a half in Korea as a refugee at the end of the Vietnam War, there was an entirely different reason why the Korean team was booed. “I was only 13 at that time but still remember it all vividly,” he said. “Vietnam had won the Cup over the past two or three years” but “went into the semi-final with the Korean team and lost.”
He added, “As you may know, Vietnamese are die-hard soccer fanatics and were frustrated that they lost their chance at the final because of Korea, so obviously the audience favored the Australian team. Booing the Korean team was no surprise.”
Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr.