I Experienced Racism in Korea

It’s hard to know where to begin. I know I’m tackling a very delicate topic and there will people on all sides of the argument. Let it be clear I’m not here to say anyone’s experiences are invalid. Your experiences are yours and nothing I say can change that. Similarly, I’m asking all of you reading to understand I’ve lived in Korea since 2015, and it doesn’t mean all of it has been pretty. I have also experienced racism in Korea.

Every country has their own sets of problems. Korea is no different. It’s not a magical fairytale land where oppar is going to saranghae you and you will live happily after after.

I promised myself a long time ago everything I wrote on my blog would give value and honesty to my reader. While there are many things I like about The Land of the Morning Calm, (obviously since I lived there for five and a half years) I’m not immune to the dark sides of the country.

In Korea, I am considered a “lighter skinned” foreigner despite being half Mexican and half Italian. I do not have it as rough as other expats who are darker skinned.

The majority of my experiences in Korea have been positive. I’ve met so many cool people who helped me when they didn’t have to. The people I highlight in this post do not represent Korea as a whole. They do; however, represent the very ugly and seedy underbelly.

The worst experiences I’ve had in Korea have mostly been in the area where I live. It is a very low income part of town. The majority of people who dwell here are very poor or very old. There is no in between.

This blog post is going to be told as a story with some typical Gina Bear humor installed into it. Sadly, there’s nothing much you can do about xenophobic assholes besides laugh at their blunt stupidity and say a grateful prayer to the lord you were educated and had the opportunity to travel.

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The Time I Got Chased by an Ajhumma

Yes. You read that right. I got chased by a fucking crazy ajhumma. I usually take Honey out at night because I don’t want to deal with people. As a matter of fact, I go out of my way to avoid people where I live. Hence I go out very early in the morning or when night has fallen.

Honey barks sometimes when people come out from the dark and startle her. I’d like to add I follow the law to the letter because if something happens, the less they have on me, the better. Honey was leashed. This lady then exploded in a fit of rage because Honey barked at her. At first she was yelling at me, so I just picked up Honey and put her in her bag to avoid the confrontation. When she started following me, that’s when I started yelling obscenities in Spanish.

And that’s about the time shit spectacularly hit the fan.

I almost peed myself when she started RUNNING AT ME like a zombie ravenous for fresh meat. And that’s when I took off. Because you never know wtf crazy people will do. Plus, I wasn’t so keen on her taking a chunk of bacon from my back in case she happened to be one.

The Time Grandpa Threatened Me

The caretaker of my apartment complex is a bad-tempered old man at least a foot shorter than me. Judging by the length of the hair growing from his ears, I can maybe guess he was around during the Korean War (or longer).

In grandpa’s defense, at least he’s a consistent misogynistic piece of shit to every woman, Korean or not. What I can fault him for, is why every time the trash isn’t sorted properly, he comes knocking on my door to blame me. Even though he has no proof and there is no CCTV around the dumpster area.

I guess as a foreigner and a woman that makes me an easy target.

In any case, he came skulking around my apartment to stick on a giant piece of paper to sort the trash properly. And when I mean giant, this paper was at least three feet long. (Talk about passive aggressive.)

When I opened the door, he started shaking his finger in my face and yelling at me to sort the trash properly. This is probably the third time he’s done this shit to me. And it takes every fiber of my being not to pop him in the face because where I come from, the first time would have been message enough for him not to do it again.

He caused Honey to bark and the neighbors to complain. To diffuse the situation, I drew myself up to my full height, took a deep breath, and told him to shut up in English.

I swear this was the magic word because after he registered it, he skulked off leaving me dumbfounded.

The Time Satan Tried Me Three Times

The devil has a funny way of fucking with us and he sure tried me one Wednesday evening. While I was walking Honey, I saw my neighbor walking down the street. We sometimes stop for a bit to chat and share bits of news about what’s going on in the schools and our area.

Let me reiterate, I was on the STREET. It’s public domain and I am perfectly within my rights to be on it. Honey barked at another dog and a coffee shop owner came out to tell me to go away because we were being too noisy. I stood my ground and stared at her until she was so uncomfortable she went back into her cafe.

Devil Trial Two

I went to the mall because I had to pick up a few things from the pet shop. So I thought I’d go get some takeout from a restaurant I like to frequent. Honey was in her bag. Other people in the food court had their dog in the bag and ordered food. Then, a cleaning lady told the cashier not to serve me because I had my dog in a bag.

Devil Trial Three

Satan REALLY tried to get me here. I’m allowed to be on public transport as long as my dog is in a bag or carrier. The bus driver looked directly into my soul and watched me get on the bus and said absolutely NOTHING. Then, halfway through the ride decided I needed to get off the bus. I make it a habit to use my headphones so I can ignore people. Then, another woman started tapping my shoulder (as I was purposely ignoring the bus driver.) He stopped at one of the stops and told me to get off the bus.

At this point, he started YELLING at me. I just looked right at him, with a perfectly blank expression and said nothing. Sorry bruh, but your public shaming doesn’t work on me. While he was yelling, I just kept staring. Because 1) I know bus drivers have a tight schedule to keep and 2) he was the one causing a commotion while I did nothing hence turning the situation on him.

Not today, Satan. Not today.

The Man Through The Window

This experience will definitely go here as what happened to me was also a strange form of racism and fetishism.

To give a little context, back in the day there were many foreign prostitutes from Russia in South Korea. Sadly, the older generation still thinks this is a thing. They will also approach you if you’re not dressed the way you should be completely covering your shoulders.

As you know, I’m an advocate of dressing however tf you want, when you want. That day I was wearing a spaghetti strap dress because the weather was quite hot. What you wear should never matter, but in Korea, if you show shoulders, you’re definitely “asking for it.” While I was having a nice tea and cake with a friend at a lovely cafe in Seoul, an older man REACHED THROUGH THE FUCKING WINDOW of the open cafe window to grab my arm and tell me I’m beautiful.

Now there are a lot of things wrong with this situation.

1) The fucking AUDACITY to reach through a window just to touch me.

2) He should ALWAYS keep his hands to himself. He would NEVER have done that to a Korean girl.

Of course, I had a mini melt down of swearing and yelling because I don’t like strangers ESPECIALLY strange men reaching through windows and touching me. If he truly wanted to be a nice human, he should have acted like one and said something like, “Excuse me miss, but I just wanted to let you know, you look very nice today.” And not have even laid a FINGER on me.

Itaewon Spreader of COVID-19

The coronavirus rocked the world in more ways than one. When the pandemic started, everyone blamed Chinese. Then, patient 31 in Korea decided to attend their cult church and contributed to the biggest outbreak in the country. During the weekend of May 11, 2020, a Korean man went out partying in Itaewon.

This man visited Homohill, known for Korea’s vibrant gay night life scene. His actions exposed almost 10K party goers to the virus.

Despite a Korean man testing positive and spreading COVID-19, it makes perfect sense to blame the foreigners, amirite?

Korea is still conservative and many people don’t care to understand or accept the LBGTQ+ community. This homophobia caused the community to come forward and get tested for fear they could lose their jobs.

In essence, it’s a double edged sword. Either out yourself and get rejected by everyone around you. Or kill yourself and potentially others from coronavirus.

How does this affect me as a foreigner in Korea?

Well, Itaewon was once known as a hotspot for the international community. That has drastically changed since the American military has moved down south. Because Korean media is now scapegoating the LGBTQ+ community and foreigners, I’m really feeling the effects of it.

My friends have confided they are stressed out of their minds because parents are looking through their social media to see if they were anywhere near Itaewon during the dates of April 24 – May 11th. Many other foreign teachers were forced to get tested even though they were no where near the area. Now if that isn’t the most racist bull shit I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is.

I would like to add my coteacher is cool af and asked me once if I was anywhere near Itaewon. To which I replied, “I hate Itaewon and I haven’t been anywhere near that shithole in ages.” And thus the matter was settled. No further questions asked.

If you were really curious about what I was doing, I was putting together my IKEA bed and cleaning my house because priorities. In addition, I have time stamped Instagram stories to prove it.

Mornings Are For Coffee and Contemplation Ajhumma Proved Otherwise

As I’ve mentioned before, I lived in a very low income area with lot of ignorant and uneducated people. One of the conditions of my employment was I live in the apartment my school provides and I get to keep my job. (At least I have an oven.)

While I was doing my morning walk with Honey, I took off my mask to drink my coffee. Because I’m damn well within my rights to do so. At the time, the rule was to keep your mask on at all times except when eating and drinking.

Let me paint a picture for you. It was a fine and sunny morning. The air was cool, crisp, and clean (for once.) I was blissfully drinking my homemade coffee in my cherry blossom CocaCola cup, listening to some raunchy sex scene from Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. Some grandma probably took one look at me and was like, “Fuck this bitch.” She came up to me and started yelling at me to put my mask on.

One of the great things about having Honey is her loyalty for her momma. Also, dogs know when people are intentionally being aggressive or threatening to their owners. Honestly, the best thing you can do during such an event is to just tell them to fuck off in English and walk away while your dog warningly barks.

There were times I truly contemplated on coughing in people’s faces so they would leave me the hell alone. This was one of them.

The Lady On The Train

This last one is probably one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had in Korea. This story starts when I was going to meet a friend at the CoEX Mall to shoot some content. Many Koreans don’t pay attention to their surroundings and don’t walk in an orderly fashion.

While I was trying to get off the train, this woman wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings and stopped right in front of me. I bumped right into her and my backpack almost got caught in the closing doors.

Silently thanking the good lord I lived another day, I decided to let it go and continue on my merry way. I didn’t realize I spilled a tiny amount of coffee on her black padded jacket. And why should I have noticed when she almost killed me with her stupidity?

While walking up the stairs, she pulled my backpack so hard I almost fell backwards down the stairs. The first thought that popped into my head was I was getting mugged until I looked back and heard her start screaming. To this day, she should count her lucky stars I didn’t drop kick her in the face because that was my first instinct.

I’d had enough because this was the second time she almost killed me so that’s when I started screaming every profanity I knew in the book in English and Spanish. I don’t think she realized I would actually scream back and she was actually taken aback and shut up.

I put my headphones back in and continued on my way. That was when I realized this psycho was FOLLOWING me and continuing to scream about the tiny bit of coffee on her back padded jacket. After that, I whipped out my phone and started filming her. She changed her tune really quick and started walking away from me.

In Conclusion…

My worst and most racist experiences have been in Hanam City. I have no one good thing to say about that shithole. The most ratchet people congregate there and their low level of education truly shows.

When people fuck with me, I can only assume they believe I’m an easy target because I am a foreign woman. Or perhaps they have a dislike for Americans.

In all honesty, I usually just try to keep away from people here and mind my own business because that’s what decent human beings do. I don’t try to tell anyone how to live their lives. From the bottom of my heart, I truly wished the people in this ratchet city would leave me alone.

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