NewsRadio

“If you do a live radio show in the morning, nothing worse can happen to you all day.”

Open Miked in Busan

I’ve been very busy recently. It’s the kind of busyness where you’re basically on the move and working from the moment you awake after five to six hours of sleep to the moment you go to bed, seven days a week, and I’ve pretty much been like this since November. It seems like a superhuman effort for a foreigner, but it’s just normal life for many Koreans. Is it a sign my attitude is becoming Korean? And if I don’t care, is the answer yes?

Before I became one with the near catatonic mental state that the Korean work experience brings about, I used to write this blog – this post may well be a figment of your imagination – and along the way I tried, and failed, to keep up with posts taken from my Busan e-FM radio segment, Open Mike in Busan. For the sake of posterity, my desire to maintain a record of my Korean experience, I intend to complete these posts, which in the end will number 51, because my time on the show came to a close, something I was extremely glad of because after 51 weeks of strip-mining this blog, I’d run out of material and laid waste to the environment.

Zen and the Art of Radio Presenting

The radio station then posted an advert for writers and presenters, and I decided to apply because even though all the station’s writers are Korean, I like writing and the worst they could say was no if I expressed an interest. A phone conversation ensued during I was asked if I’d like to try out as a presenter, and even though I regard myself as having a face for radio and a voice for writing, I ended up going along with it because I’d decided to let the cards choose my fate considering how letting my intellect and logic choose the course of my life had turned out. There was also a strong element of my saying I was interested in writing, and the person on the other end of the phone hearing I really wanted to present. Many of my conversations in Korea seem to follow this pattern.

So it was that I turned up one day at Busan e-FM thinking someone was going to interview me about both options, but instead found an unfamiliar script thrust into my hands with the words “you’re on in ten minutes.”

As far as I understand the process, writers write pieces for the radio station, which are then translated into English by Koreans, and in my experience the results are invariably less than perfect in the way that a large asteroid hitting the Earth would be less than ideal. So I spent a tense ten minutes correcting what I was about to read in the studio.

During the reading, half-way down the second page and so far word perfect, I saw the end in sight and thought “I’m going to make it”, which almost inevitably was the trigger to make a small mistake. The producer immediately cut me off and ended the test recording. I knew it was over – live radio is a harsh mistress. As the producer clicked away on the computer, I stared out of the window contemplating the fact that if I’d had more than five hours of sleep the night before – which my baby son’s screaming had prevented – I might have been better. But in those moments I enjoyed the Zen-like realisation that my son was going to wake up at night for the foreseeable future, I was always going to be this tired – and hosting a live radio show was not for me.

I won’t pretend not to have been a little disappointed though; I was curious about how things would have turned out given that I’m just far enough beyond giving a damn not to try and have fun with it, which I expect would have ultimately pitched me against the people who run things.

This Segmented Life – Busan and More and Less

Something unexpected came of the test recording though. It was played to the station’s producers who’d gathered to formerly reject me in favour of someone better, but one of them was looking for a new segment guest and so it was that I was offered the role of writing and guesting on the Morning Wave in Busan show segment, Busan and More, which every Monday morning discusses the events taking place in the city in the week ahead.

On the downside, there was little scope to indulge in the kind of subtle freelance subversion I’d engaged in for Open Mike in Busan, but on the other hand I thought researching all those events would be a good opportunity for my wife and I to kick-start our social and cultural life which had ended after the birth of our son (I was wrong).

And then I unexpectedly got the chance to host a show after all, when – and I’m going to be necessarily vague here – the new presenter of a show was absent on their first day, leaving a hanging question of whether they would appear for their second. It was a one-time deal because no-one else was available and they were desperate, so I spent two hours the next day working through the translated English script trying to understand what it meant – no easy task - and correcting it. This certainly gave me an additional perspective on just how much work being a presenter at the station required, and how ill-advised doing such a job would be considering the hidden commitment.

I worked through that script correcting it and practising the Korean names within it, knowing that the missing presenter may resurface and I may not appear anyway – and so it was. I’d sent the station my corrected script anyway and later listened somewhat perplexed - and yet somehow completely unsurprised – as the new presenter awkwardly read out the original English translation, not my corrected version.

International Media Talk and Historical Figures

After this, I was offered another segment on the Weekly Review programme, called International Media Talk, which I would do every other week and discuss news in the global media. Finally things came full circle when the formerly absent presenter left the station after three months, the original host returned, and I was offered another segment on his show – Inside Out Busan – called Historical Figures, which essentially tries to discuss facts about famous people from history you possibly never knew.

Even by my standards, I knew the new segment would likely push me to breaking point, but the presenter and I had become friends along the way and I’d always said I would do more for his show if called upon. I also saw that the new segment potentially promised to be something I could have fun with because the entire premise bordered on the subversive. Seeing society through the perspective of the absurd is the only thing that motivates me to get up in the morning these days. Later in writing it though I’d discover that producing something that matched my expectations in the limited time I had would be a difficult trick to pull off.

About twelve to fifteen hours goes into writing those 30 minutes of radio for Busan e-FM every week, which I’d be the first to accept is probably far in excess of what most other people in my position would sanely put in. This is not work I’d recommend to anyone; I’ve long since developed a love-hate relationship with it, although I suppose at this point that could be said of most of my Korean experiences in general.

Busan e-FM Week 36: Love Hotels, Sex and Adultery (Banned)

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

It took 36 weeks, but I finally had a script refused for broadcast. When I started doing my weekly segment with Busan e-FM, it was with the agreement that I could be honest about my experiences in Korea, but the question is, does Korea want to be honest about itself?

Ostensibly, the problem was that Love Hotels and Adultery – the main thrust of my piece – were “not appropriate subjects” for the radio. TBS eFM – an equivalent English-language radio station in Seoul had covered these subjects before – but that’s Seoul and this is Busan, which is generally much more socially conservative.

Exploring where these newly discovered boundaries lay, and whether they were strictly sexual, I asked - mindful that the 2011 Dog Meat Festival in Gyeonggi Province had recently been cancelled amidst protests – if the subject I was allegedly considering for the next week – that of dog meat in Korea – would be acceptable. I was of course, just screwing with them. I felt I saw a slightly pained look cross the face of my assigned handler. It was not really an acceptable subject either.

And so it was we reached the climax of our conversation. It was probably best to avoid ‘controversial subjects’. That was the spot I’d touched. The two people I knew that regularly listened to my segment – who for all I know were actually the only two people who listened at all - were surprised. Hadn’t the radio station really been listening to what I’d been talking about before now?

I’ve always found the foreigners who only tell Koreans what they want to hear for the sake of a quiet life somewhat soda-masochistic, even if we’ve all done it from time to time. So I escaped my temporary bondage and continued tackling controversial subjects in the weeks that followed, going on to reference attitudes to homosexuality in Korea, monoculture and corporate enslavement, racism and the often enforced dystopian existence of foreigners, consumer nationalism, chaebol media lies and the absence of critical thought, [stay tuned!] but I did it in my usual style – hopefully relatively gently, diplomatically, and with humour.

I’d like to think that if done sufficiently eloquently, it is possible to speak truth to power in Korea, but whether that’s because people here are truly prepared to have a light shone on certain subjects, or simply because they weren’t listening or didn’t understand, is the loaded question.

I include the script below as an example of the realities of Korean life and culture you can’t talk about on the radio in Busan in 2011.

Introduction – Love Hotels, Sex and Adultery

Last week I talked about ‘bangs’ - such as the ‘DVD bang’ couples go to. This week I’m talking about a related subject, that of ‘love hotels’ or ‘love motels’. I don’t quite know how to translate this because we don’t use the word ‘motel’ in British English, but I’ve seen them called both hotels and motels here.

I think this highlights an issue with the cultural development of language. A motel is described as a ‘hotel for motorists’, and it makes sense this word would emerge from American English because of the long road journeys people have to make in the United States. They don’t have to do this in England because the country is geographically small – so you can normally get to where you want to go in a day. But I understand that many American motels are dropping the word now because it’s seen as being ‘seedy’.

We still have slightly seedy hotels in England – we just call them ‘bed & breakfasts’. But there are no love hotels in England that I'm aware of.

Love Hotels

So I was surprised when I saw the love hotels here, although not totally shocked – Japan is famous for its love hotels and most people outside Japan have probably heard of them. To a Westerner like myself, there seem to be a lot of general cultural similarities between Japan and Korea, so it’s not a complete shock to discover love hotels here, but as I’ve said before, I really didn’t know that much about Korea before coming here, and I certainly didn’t realise how popular they are.

I took them as a sign of social restriction in Korea, in the same way that ‘DVD bang’ represent the same issue. They are both somewhere to go because so many young people live at home. Maybe ‘DVD bang’ are where they go to fool around, and when it gets more serious they graduate to love hotels. I find it funny though how people going there want privacy, but the buildings are usually so very visible and obvious because of their architectural tendency to employ large fake Roman columns, cupid statues, small windows and plenty of neon lighting.

Staying in a Love Hotel

I’ve actually stayed in a love hotel. The first time I went to Seoul it was just for an overnight trip, and my wife and I wanted to save money, so she said “love hotels are cheap... and usually have Internet connections.” I thought ‘why not?’ Anyway, if the word ‘cheap’ didn’t sell it for me, the word ‘Internet’ certainly did.

So we quickly came across a love hotel in some Seoul backstreet near the Blue House, although I’ve learned that in Korea love hotels certainly don’t feel compelled to hide themselves away. That said, they do try to maintain a certain air of privacy, with curtains at the entrance to the drive-in areas to avoid cars and perhaps car licence-plates being seen, which always gave me the impression that a lot of older people might be using the hotels given that younger people generally own fewer cars – and probably don’t care about that kind of privacy as much. This quickly led me to believe that love hotels are frequently the venue for affairs in Korea. But if that didn’t convince me, when we reached the counter it also had a curtain over it, our money went underneath and a hand comes back with a key. No faces are visible and it’s all quite seedy actually, which made me feel vaguely guilty. I felt like trying to look underneath the curtain to say “we’re married”, but then I suppose everyone feeling guilty says that.

Last week I talked about going to DVD bangs with two Korean women, which in retrospect – given the area we were in – looked bad. And in some ways I felt the same way at the love hotel – if the staff had seen my face it wasn’t going to do anything positive for the reputation of foreigners. Then again, love hotels don’t always do much with foreigners for the reputation of the Koreans who run them – last year there wasn’t enough hotel space at the inaugural Korean Grand Prix, so a number of journalists ended up staying in love hotels – perhaps unsuspectingly. Anyway, the main point it that they were charged $310 per night – in other words they were ripped off – which means that evidently the love hotel owners realised they were foreigners early into the transaction – curtains or not.

While it might be cheap – unless you happen to be an unsuspecting foreigner – it’s not necessarily easy to get a good night’s rest there, because my wife was worried about hidden cameras. I don’t know if this is just an urban legend or whether it actually happens – actually I suspect it probably does happen sometimes. So it’s all about undressing in a part of the room where you think the camera won’t see you, then hiding under the covers and sleeping. I don’t want to be famous on the Korean Internet.

So I guess the love hotels are still too much of a risk for some. I was up on Hwangryeong Mountain late one night in Busan taking shots of the city after dark, and there were a few cars parked along the road, spaced apart. There seemed to be some kind of activity in a couple of the cars, and one of them had the stereotypical steamed up windows, and the car was moving around. Given the executive and old fashioned nature of the car concerned, I imagined there had to be an older couple inside.

Adultery is a Criminal Offence in Korea

Of course, adultery is illegal in Korea, so people have to be careful. I was really shocked when I found out about this law, but perhaps it goes some way to explain some of the behaviour I’ve encountered. When my wife and I were at another love hotel, another couple happened to come out of the room at the same time as us, and as soon as they saw us they dashed back inside.

I don’t know what to think about the adultery law. On the one hand, adultery is a bad thing, but on the other hand, in my opinion it seems like the kind of law the Taliban would have, and not something you find in a modern country.

I think the law creates a bad impression of South Korea. Maybe it’s not fair expecting Korea to be socially liberal, but this country is very keen to attract foreign investment and foreign companies, but I imagine business executives in foreign companies look at Korean society as a whole before they decide to come here and think “what kind of country is this?”

What I can’t figure out about this law is that legislators are mainly men, and men are usually willing adulterers – in fact male politicians around the world are known for their affairs – so why did these men create and pass this law? Do they like living dangerously or were they really worried about their lives? [I left this question hanging but I’m convinced that men passed this law to control women in the traditionally misogynistic Korean court system, although more recently judges may have been a little more balanced in their judgements].

It’s also worth making some comparisons between South Korea and other countries. China is not known for being socially liberal, but adultery isn’t a criminal offence there. But then adultery is a criminal offence in the U.S. state of New Hampshire – it isn’t enforced and there are people trying to get it removed from the statute books.

I think the whole issue raises some fundamental questions about freedom and democracy in South Korea. Should the majority be able to dictate to – and criminalise – a minority that don’t meet their moral standards? For that matter, what right does the government have to legislate people’s sex lives?

It’s a dangerous road to go down in my opinion. Some Islamic countries have ‘moral police’ who enforce compliance with Sharia Law – is that really what the police should be doing in Korea? Last year, I read about an incident in Malaysia where the ‘morality police’ were knocking on people’s doors in a hotel, and they ended up arresting 52 unmarried couples. I suppose if the Korean police really wanted to enforce the law here they could just visit love hotels, check people’s marital status, and make arrests. To be fair, they don’t, but the fact that the law exists means that one day they could, or just choose to do it selectively to target certain individuals or groups, which is why bad laws should never be on the statute books. Anyway, as far as Korea is concerned, I think the people should be spending their time arresting motorcyclists who ride on the pavements [sidewalks], rather than getting involved in policing people’s relationships.

Korean Porn Movies

While I don’t worry about getting arrested in a love hotel, I do worry about the perceived issue of hidden cameras and ending up on the Internet, but I haven’t avoided Korea’s love hotels despite this. When we went to a funeral in Namhae we found ourselves in the countryside and it was quite isolated. As you can imagine, there wasn’t a proper hotel for miles, but there was a love hotel just up the road from the the funeral hall. So given that Korean funerals tend to be multi-day events, and given that we didn’t want to sleep in the funeral hall with a heaving mass of older Koreans, we had little choice but to stay in a love hotel once again.

This one was even less subtle because even if the building's fake Roman columns and cupid statues didn’t give the game away to the uninitiated, it had a large collection of pornographic videos outside the elevator on our floor - most appeared to be Korean-made. It also had a great looking Jacuzzi placed centrally within the room, but sadly we daren’t use it because of the potential for hidden cameras.

Korean Culture

Staying in a love hotel is an interesting experience. When it comes down to it, staying in hotels in England is often all the same, but Korean love hotels have character. At the risk of giving Korean newspapers even more reasons to hate us, I think it’s something every foreigner should try at least once. They are part of what Korea is, and part of the cultural experience here.

Planned air date: 2011-06-29 @ ~19:30

Footnote

Five weeks after the planned air date of this piece, South Korea's Constitutional Court overturned the provision in the Criminal Code imposing a maximum two-year prison sentence on adulterers, saying it was 'an infringement on the sphere of sexual life that society should maintain on its own' and that 'the state was excessively restricting a matter of personal decision.'

Busan e-FM Week 34: Brands, Counterfeiting and Piracy

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Background

A week earlier while I was waiting to go on air at the station, a situation was posed which led me to say “But that would be unethical”. I needed to repeat that last word a number of times. We quickly established that the English word ‘ethical’ may sound hilarious to Koreans. I wasn’t entirely convinced that this was merely a phonetic issue, which resolved me to pick a topic related to ethics for this week’s show.

Whatever I talk about on the radio, above all else I’ve been told that it has to be entertaining, so it’s fair to say I peppered the segment with the word ‘ethical’ on the principle that if it makes people laugh, instant comedy. I’ve also experimented with the word ‘morally’, but I don’t think the audience is quite ready for it yet, although I’m told ‘contract’ is quite an amusing idea here too.

I wish I was able to communicate with the engineer, because perhaps then we could have set up some canned laughter for every time the word ‘ethical’ was used. That would have been great. Anyway, we decided that ‘ethical’ was the ‘word of the day’.

Introduction

Korea seems to be a country which is particularly obsessed by brands, whether they are real or fake. I’ve always thought it must be something in the Korean psyche – there’s a need to belong to the clan.

The Korean Bag Market

I read in a newspaper that “For Koreans, a designer bag can earn prestige and maybe even a profit.” What that referred to was the fact that in some cases, second-hand prices for these bags are rising above the original purchase price because the price of new bags is rising so quickly.

As a financial trader it reminds me of the stock market – and it does seem that some people in Korea are buying these bags as investments and agonising about waiting to buy them while watching the price move away from them. I think nine times out of ten, when you find yourself in that position, it’s best to let it go. But why do prices keep rising? It seems that from the price differences between Korea and other countries, the brand companies are just raising prices here because they know the market will bear it. They are ripping people off in other words, turning Korea into a bubble-market. [This was especially noticeable when the recent Korea-EU Free Trade Agreement came into effect, and the removal of tariffs were actually accompanied by European designer brand price rises, instead of price cuts]. So Koreans are going overseas to buy these bags instead. [Yes, it’s international designer bag arbitrage!]

The 397 Generation

It’s not as if we don’t have brands in England or the West in general, but there seems to be more trust for them here. I think this is bad economically, because it makes it difficult for new brands to break into the market, and you end up with the chaebol system leading to a lack of choice. Two reasons why this is bad have been in the news recently – large chaebol-built apartment buildings have been accused of poor safety, and then there’s the beer issue. When I got here I kept seeing the same two brands of beer – which largely turns out to be because there are only two major domestic breweries [plus once again, tariffs help]. Korea isn’t a very diverse society but if nothing else you should really have diversity with beer.

Apparently a lot of the brand-worship these days is being blamed on the ‘397 Generation’, who are in their 30s, went to college in the 90s, and were born in the 70s. But from what I see, it seems more like it should be blamed on what I would call the ‘295 Generation’ - 20-somethings with IQs around the 95 mark [logically meaning in England we should probably have a ‘285 Generation’]. Anyway, it certainly isn’t limited to young people, because older people in Korea appear to have an obsession with German cars [specifically, Audis – which mainly men buy – and BMWs, which mainly women buy].

But does this make people happy? In a recent OECD Happiness Survey South Korea ranked 26th out of 34 in the Index, with 36% of South Koreans saying they were satisfied with their life [I don’t know who these people are either because it’s nobody I know here, leading me to wonder how honest the respondents were considering the potential loss-of-face involved in telling the truth]. A lot of it is linked to stress, and a fixation with money [and probably brands by implication]. But I thought a Gallup poll around the same time offered a fascinating insight into Korean life: Koreans aspire to be richer and happier, but apparently they hate rich people.

Faking it

So people harbour a lot of brand aspirations here, and animosity towards those that achieve what they don’t. Perhaps it’s this which leads to the view that if you can’t have it for real, you have to fake it. Making counterfeit items big business in South Korea.

I was surprised when I came here and saw all the counterfeit goods. It’s not as if we don’t have this problem in England as well, but here in Busan they are just out on the street in plain view in districts such as Nampodong. And then up in Seoul you have areas such as Itaewon and Myeong-dong where it’s said that 1-in-10 street vendors are selling counterfeits (and I can’t help thinking that number is probably only that low because a lot of the other vendors are selling food).

But there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of incentive to crack down because it’s good for tourism, with evidence that Japanese and Chinese tourists particularly come to Korea because the quality of fakes here is known to be ‘very high’. And this is the tip of the iceberg, because many more counterfeit items are being sold online.

Does it matter?

Personally I don’t care about bags, and I don’t get paying $1,000 for one. But morally, the business of counterfeiting is unethical [stare into control room]. But then more visible danger is counterfeit drugs; counterfeit goods are a kind of cheat, but counterfeit drugs can kill.

Doing business is an issue – if I were visiting Korea to sign a deal with a company, and saw all the counterfeiting activity going on and that it appeared to be so publicly acceptable, I might think this makes the country and people I’m dealing with in it seem less ethical, like with honouring contracts for example. So I’d wonder, is Korea an ethical or unethical country?

Software Piracy

It also extends to the media industry of course. At PIFF [The ‘Pusan’ International Film Festival], when a message came up saying “No Piracy in Korea”, people laughed. And when I first came to Busan I noticed that while there were shops everywhere, there appeared to be a distinct lack of music, DVD and software stores. Every shop seemed to be running Windows XP Professional though – which is a premium priced version of the Microsoft operating system – and you have to think that the reason is because they’re probably not genuine copies.

I used to be a software developer and I like the ‘open source’ concept but it doesn’t pay the bills. The incentive to build software that would help people in this country isn’t as prevalent as it should be, because there’s no reward if people pirate their software rather than buy. In fact it’s said that piracy in Korea may cost this country around 20,000 IT jobs. [I’ve never been totally convinced by these arguments – it may well cost 20,000 IT sector jobs, but I think the money saved just results in jobs getting shifted elsewhere – admittedly into the service sector which is a dead-end for economic development which Korea shouldn’t want].

The excuse people who pirate always use is that they weren’t going to buy the product anyway, which is undoubtedly true in some cases and undoubtedly false in others. People in Korea don’t seem to care though. I went into a computer store once to ask for a quote on a computer, and was told “we can supply whatever you want – any software... no extra cost.” I actually wanted to buy a genuine copy of Windows – and after overcoming the proprietor’s incredulity he finally laughed and said sheepishly “we don’t have any”.

I think this isn’t isolated because there was a case recently of a large supermarket chain being caught selling pirated software on netbooks, and according to official figures software piracy has reached a five-year high.

You know what really got me about my trip to a computer store? That the proprietor admitted that the one downside of the pirated copies of ‘Windows Vista’ these days is that you can’t update them, which means no security updates and all that implies. But people “don’t really care”. So there’s an ethical issue here but the bigger issue to my mind is security.

Korea’s Digital Pearl Habor

People are taking reckless chances with their online security by running pirated software, because even if you don’t get caught by some downloaded virus, your pirated version of Windows itself may include programs that spy on you, and steal your passwords and bank account details. It’s obviously occurring too because once I was called in to look at a friend’s computer that was ‘running slowly’, and it transpired to be because of the large number of spyware programs infecting the machine.

That’s a practical outcome of these security weaknesses – that to access your bank you have to go through a lot of quite complicated procedures involving digital signatures, and that sounds like it has its advantages on the principle that more security is always good, but it isn’t, because the upshot of the technical environment here is that everyone has to use inherently flawed ActiveX technology and because most people are running pirated versions of Windows which often can’t be updated, everyone designs their websites and security for Internet Explorer 6, which is very insecure.

But where this problem might really manifest itself, is in the field of cyber-warfare, which is already with us, as the attack on Nonghyup Bank earlier this year – which was blamed on North Korea – demonstrates. People often think that if war with the North happens, it’s going to start with thousands of North Korean soldiers rushing over the border, but I think it’s more likely war will begin with a massive cyber attack which, will cripple South Korea. I can see this country very quickly losing its mobile phone networks, Internet, TV, financial, GPS, power and traffic infrastructure. And even if nuclear power plants aren’t connected to the Internet as the authorities in this country claim, the same was true of Iran but foreign intelligence agencies still managed to introduce a devastating virus into that closed system.

North Korea allegedly has 30,000 ‘electronic warfare agents’ or hackers as it is, so it seems optimistic to think they aren’t going to used as part of the initial strike against this country.

So the way I see it, I feat it will be chaos before the first shot is even fired. And that’s the problem. Never mind stealing your bank details, how do you know your pirated copy of Windows doesn’t have a foreign program on it waiting to trigger as part of a cyber attack? You don’t, whether it’s ethical or not, using pirated software might turn out to be a danger to South Korea’s security, whether through war directly or just industrial espionage. Fake bags are not going to bring down society, but the thinking that accepts it, just might.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-06-15 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 33: Humour/Humor, Satire and Ire

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Background

In retrospect, I can’t quite believe I got to make some of these points on the radio. I love humour - I'd much rather be watching an episode of Blackadder, Community, Seinfeld, The Big Bang Theory or Better Off Ted [which inexplicably nobody watched] than Saw 6. In fact I consider my life to be one long extended joke. So I wanted to talk about the subject of humour, but I also thought it would be nice if the next generation of Koreans that largely make up the Busan eFM audience could learn to lighten up. They won't of course, life in Korea is often an extremely serious, depressing and stressful experience, and anything I say on air is a drop in the ocean - an ocean in which everyone has long since drowned. But you know what? Never give up. Never surrender.

Introduction

Last week I talked about how the Expat Internet is hell. But foreigners can be funny too, and not just in a strange way. This week I’m covering expat humour in Korea.

What's so funny anyway?

Humour is a very funny thing. What one person finds amusing, another may not. Between foreigners, there’s a difference between British and American humour for example – even the words are spelt differently. I feel that British humour is more deadpan, darker, sometimes meaner, and more surreal. I think American humour is different, but still funny.

Babopalooza in Busan

I think there’s a huge difference between Korean humour and Western humour though. My first experience of this here came in the form of an expat comedy called ‘Babopalooza’ here in Busan back in 2006. It became quite a big issue in the foreign community.

This is my understanding of it: essentially a group put on a theatre performance which made fun of life in Korea. The targets for the humour were Koreans and Western foreigners. But one of the potential dangers with cultural comedy, especially here I think, is that Koreans only see Koreans being made fun of. In fact one of the co-writers actually said the ‘babo’ in Babopalooza were the foreigners. Anyway, apparently the police or immigration officials came to watch, and allegedly the upshot of it all was that people lost their jobs and had to leave Korea, while others had problems with visa renewals. So really, it was a comedy with a sad ending.

Babopalooza happened six weeks after I came to Korea for the first time. I appreciate that public comedy performances are really tough to pull off, but the reaction to the show made me think that however nicely people were treating me, beneath the surface this country might not be a very friendly place.

I’ve seen Korean performers on TV putting on ‘black faces’ [or masks] and pretending to be black or Africans. I guess that’s – apparently – OK here [it’s not], but you can’t do that in England because it would be racist. By our standards, that’s quite nasty – not funny at all – but it’s acceptable here, whereas Babopalooza was unacceptable.

So these examples made me think that Koreans can make fun of foreigners, but foreigners making fun of Koreans is unacceptable. I’m afraid that doesn’t create a good image of Korea or Koreans [some foreigners also lean towards the view that foreigners in Korea should keep their mouths shut and just do their jobs].

Anyway, while I gather there was a lot of creative energy here in Busan before Babopalooza, after what happened – for a while – foreigners were afraid to do any public performances. Busan wants to have art and culture to create a multicultural city, but it makes me think that what they want is the Korean version of multiculturalism, where everyone thinks like a Korean. [Bazinga!]

The Line

I don’t think Babopalooza went too far, but I’m not going to pretend that other expats haven’t crossed the line. Last year a foreigner started a blog [Blackout Korea] which others perhaps contributed to as well, that consisted of pictures of drunk, unconscious Koreans. I can see how that might seem funny for a couple of moments, but beyond that I don’t find it funny – instead it’s a rather sad reflection on all the pressures in Korean society which causes this.

Some drugs (like alcohol) [Korea likes to think of itself as ‘drug-free’ but that depends on your definition] are OK in moderation, but this kind of drug abuse seems a big problem in Korea, just like it is in my country – and it’s not funny there either. But obviously some foreigners found it funny, and this shows that the problem with humour is that it can easily be one-sided and insensitive, and that ultimately it can easily slip into racism. It doesn’t have to be like that though because I think there are better and genuinely funny blogs written by foreigners in Korea.

Humorous Expat Blogs... Or What Amuses Me

I’ll tell you how I feel about expat blogs here. There are the big name bloggers which everyone reads, and they’re churning out entries for their audience, but some of the lesser known blogs here such as Expat Hell and The Supplanter feature – to my mind – excellent writing which really attracts me, and they contain a lot of self-deprecating humour. I feel I make fun of myself quite often in my blog so I suppose I appreciate that style.

But then some of the expat blogs are written explicitly not as personal experiences of life in Korea, but more for the purpose of satire, which I find especially interesting.

Satire

The satirical blogs are different to the other expat blogs, which tend to cover daily life. Wikipedia defines satire as a format in which “vices, follies, abuses and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.”

So people can find satire uncomfortable, and that was the problem with Babopalooza. In fact, the Wikipedia page on satire even mentions something that happened here in Korea to the foreign journalist Michael Breen, who wrote a satirical article in The Korea Times, which resulted in him being sued for $1 million by the chaebol he satirised [Samsung]. Mike Breen said the prosecutor in his case didn’t get his satirical article, telling him “It’s not funny if it’s not true.” [comment 24].

I gathered that apparently there’s no tradition of written satire in Korea, so writing satirical material can be a dangerous activity in Korea. And yet I think it’s important in today’s world because so many people are ignorant of the news. In fact, in America surveys show that presenters such as Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert are the only way some people actually know what’s going on – even if it’s dressed up as satire.

The Yangpa, Dokdo Is Ours, and The Dokdo Times

I think the first satirical blog in Korea was The Yangpa, which presumably was inspired by the famous American satire site, The Onion. The Yangpa blog started before I came to Korea, and people talked about it back then but I must admit I rarely read it. The problem for me was highlighted by one early entry about a pop singer/actress who was guilty of plagiarism with her degree. When I first came here I didn’t understand enough about Korea to know who this was or why plagiarism was a good satirical subject, so the humour was lost on me. I think this illustrates why satire requires knowledge.

The Yangpa ended in 2008, then a site started called ‘Dokdo Is Ours’, and when the writer ended that last year, another new site started, this time called ‘The Dokdo Times’, which is essentially written in the style of a fake Korean newspaper. What I like about these sites is that they aren’t just aimed at satirising one group of people – but everyone, including foreigners. For example, the most popular ‘story’ on The Dokdo Times’ site is about a Korean woman who married a foreigner and then realised he’s actually an idiot. I think that’s something both Koreans and foreigners can relate to.

But What Do They Think?

I’m not sure what Koreans really make of this foreign humour. Despite what Mike Breen said about the prosecutor in his case, I believe from what I've read that some Koreans in Korea really find some of these satirical sites funny. [And at least one Korean comedian may be out there pushing the envelope as well]. They are a test of English as well – if you understand humour written in another language then you’ve really done well. Even when I’ve learnt Korean, I think it might still be some time before I understand Korean satire, assuming that exists.

‘Babopalooza’ was judged ‘not funny’ by the authorities, and sometimes Koreans get very angry at some foreign humour – either they don’t get it or the humour wasn’t funny in the first places and it just ended up being offensive. Comedy and satire can be very difficult things to pull off, especially in a foreign country.

Learning About Korea Through Humour

I’d say that I’m learning about Korea through humour. I read the Korean news but it’s easy to miss things or not really think about them deeply. For example, one of these recent satirical ‘news articles’ from The Dokdo Times detailed how people with three or more drunk driving convictions would be banned from working as bus and taxi drivers. It sounds like a joke but it’s actually really true, which to me is a serious issue which people should be thinking about more. Maybe if people did, the society we live in could become a better, more tolerant and less hypocritical place [or it might at least become safer].

Can Satire Change Attitudes in Korea?

I don’t know if satire can change attitudes in Korea though. Can anything change Korea? Recently I read that that Korea is the fifth ‘most socially tight’ country in the world [actually, the fifth among 33 countries surveyed, not that the Chosun Ilbo ever let a detail like that get in the way of a good headline], meaning there is a great deal of conformity here, and pressure to conform. Satire represents the opposite of conformity in many ways, because it points out the inconsistencies and hypocrisies in society. There’s nothing wrong with conforming if that’s what you want to do, but humour and satire are good ways of encouraging you to think for yourself too.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-06-08 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 32: Hell is Other Expats

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Background

A lot of this was rather tongue-in-cheek, but it does explain my reticence to engage with the expat community during my time in Korea, both in person and increasingly on the Internet.

Introduction

Today I'm talking about what I've learned about the expat community here - at least the Western expats anyway - because the migrant workers and immigrant wives aren't really the same community so I can't talk about them from personal experience. Jean-Paul Sartre once famously wrote that "Hell is other people", so today my topic is "Hell is Other Expats".

Before 'The Station'

Before I started appearing on Busan eFM, I didn't have any interaction with the expat community at all. There aren't many foreigners living in the Saha-gu district of Busan anyway - and this was especially true in 2006 when I first got here. Evidently we were so rare that I asked myself what I would do if I met one. What is the social etiquette? Do we engage is some vague recognition of each other's presence?

It was three days of walking around my area before I saw another Westerner - but only at a distance - and it was two weeks before I really came face to face with one. We were walking towards each other in an otherwise empty hospital corridor and there really was no escape. "This is it" I thought, as we approached. And then she smiled, and I ignored her. It seems you can't escape your upbringing - and you don't smile at strangers where I'm from. It didn't help that, as I recall, she was quite attractive, and women like that shouldn't smile at people like me - it's just cruel. Also, when that happens in that context, I'm just going to think some handsome Korean doctor is walking two feet behind me and it's him the smile is aimed at. So obviously I'm going to play it cool and not risk looking like an idiot.

But there was no handsome Korean doctor. She probably recognised the fresh-off-the-boat look of panic on my face and felt pity for me. But I ignored her.

The etiquette

So in the end I decided to ignore other foreigners - it's just too weird to behave differently. I did wonder if Koreans have this problem? A person could be Japanese or Chinese. Can a Korean recognise a Korean overseas? [Well, they say they always can and to suggest otherwise is to invite the conversation to become quite... animated - it's an issue loaded with significance which makes it rather fascinating].

It's only 2011 now - five years after the hospital corridor incident - but things feel very different now; there are so many more foreigners - in fact so many, they're pairing off and dating.

So we're not just here to steal your women

I'm seeing more Western couples here now, which I never used to in Busan. I think foreigners here used to be so rare we were a bit like giant pandas. In fact I can't escape from that image in my mind - of a male and female Westerner locked up in a cage by the Koreans to see if they will breed together.

But whatever happens in real life with the expats, that's not what worries me, because these days a lot of life isn't real at all - it's on the Internet. And in cyberspace, all the expats are together in one big unhappy community.

One big unhappy community

In my first couple of years I read a lot of discussion forums here, mainly visited by native-English teachers. And let's just say that they created a certain impression of foreigners in Korea... namely the impression that they are slightly mad... or quite possibly completely unhinged in some cases. There was a lot of fuss a couple of years ago about foreigners being tested for AIDS when they arrived here, but it's quite possibly their mental health that ought to be checked on the way in. Or maybe they're fine when they get here, and it's Korea that turns you crazy.

I was asked once why foreigners come to Korea, and I said I think part of the reason is because they don't fit in back home, myself included. Otherwise, why are we here rather than doing something productive with our time? Korea often seems to be a place where foreigners flail around as their career prospects back home gradually seep away. You don't have to play the career game but if you don't it marks you out as different in an adventurous, eccentric and strange way. From everything I've read I'd describe many other expats here as rather dubious characters.

Dubious

'Dubious' is a very important English word. It doesn't actually mean anything, but it scares people every time. I always thought these dubious expats were mainly teachers; most are straight out of university, so they're young and inexperienced and think the world owes them a living. Then they come here, they're given an audience in the form of a classroom full of students. They get a lot of attention, and I think that causes some to fall into a kind of 'rock star' mentality.

So I think it all goes to some people's heads. It's like when you read some saying on the Internet that they don't want to work for less than 25,000 won an hour. You don't need a qualification in Economics to understand it's just supply and demand - more foreign teachers here means less money. That's capitalism. There end up being a lot of arguments on the expat Internet and it can get really bad tempered. I mentioned that - before I came onto Busan eFM - I really made no attempt to mix with other foreigners, and part of the reason for that is reading all these people being rude to each other. We often complain about Korean netizens and how bad their behaviour can be when they get angry, but I'm not sure foreigners are really any different.

Angry non-Korean netizens

So how it typically goes with angry foreign '외국인' netizens is that someone posts something about Korea on a discussion forum, and then it only takes a few posts (or less) for someone to become rude and then the insults fly back and forth. It's often like watching a battle of wits between two unarmed opponents - you grab your popcorn and watch - but it's also a depressing reflection on humanity in the end.

But it's not just teachers, as there are other discussion forums these days for non-teachers in Korea and on one, for example, the moderators themselves are quite happy to engage in attacking other users and making sarcastic comments. So there's no incentive to post or participate in the community for me if that's the kind of environment they want to have. Perhaps civil discussion is becoming a lost art, both amongst foreigners and in Korea as well.

The 'Sunfull' campaign

Cyber-bullying has become a big issue in Korea in recent years, which has led to the launch of the so-called 'Sunfull' campaign of 'online etiquette' [which essentially encourages people to be nice to each other online]. Of course it's been prompted by the number of suicides which have occurred due to online bullying. The campaign has - apparently - attracted over one million messages, so it may have touched a nerve.

The emphasis of the Sunfull campaign is on posting positive messages [it's actually got the potential to be quite sinister in that respect if you think through where that's going], but I think it would be a good start just to have people not being rude to each other online. Nobody wants to live in a society where you can only write positive things [not true - obviously it's a very seductive idea to some politicians and political groups in Korea and other countries, and later Busan eFM belatedly banned me from discussing certain subjects on air - more on this to follow], civil disagreement is an important part of our freedom but the trouble is many people seem to lack the education and intelligence to form reasoned counter-arguments - it's easier to be rude.

I think one of the ironies of the Sunfull campaign though is that while politicians in Seoul are trying to encourage people to be civil to each other, at the same time media and politicians are launching some quite nasty attacks on Japan, sometimes there are fights in parliament, and it sets the tone doesn't it? I sympathise with Korea over the Dokdo issue but getting really angry about it is a big turnoff for foreigners and therefore actually counter-productive. If you look at people like Ghandi and the Dalai Lama, with reasoned non-aggressive arguments they drew many people overseas to their campaigns. Angry Koreans attacking foreigners just damages the image of Korea, and angry expats arguing with each other in discussion forums just damages the image of expats. I think expats need their own Sunfull campaign.

I wouldn't set one up though because I really don't care enough - my solution is just to stop reading and posting on these forums. And anyway - foreigners aren't like Koreans. Recently I read that Korea was the 'fifth tightest society in the world' - meaning it's very restricted socially and culturally [actually it's the fifth out of 33 countries surveyed although the Chosun Ilbo went with the more salacious headline]. So whereas you might be able to convince Koreans to do something if the social pressure is there, if you suggest the same to foreigners they're probably just going to do the complete opposite instead.

No escape from Expat Hell

So there probably is no escape from the online Expat Hell. But not everything's bad. Rather than go crazy with hate and spend all their time arguing with people on the Internet, some foreigners turn to humour, and it's the interesting subject of expat humour that I plan to talk about next week.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-06-01 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 31: The New Address System

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

The address system in Korea is changing. What does it mean?

Addresses in England... versus Korea

In England addresses are organized into house numbers, street names, areas – which are a bit like a ‘gu’ - city, county and then postcode, or zip code as it’s called in the U.S. Street names are random – more or less – and the house numbers are fairly logical, starting at 1-3-5 on one side of the road and 2-4-6 on the other. Letters are sorted by house number of postcode, so they are easy to find.

In Korea addresses have the city and the district which is what you’d expect, but then it gets rather strange. Buildings are given lot numbers in the order the property was built – a system introduced by the occupying Japanese in 1910. So of course, once you’re in an area finding the actual building – given that the numbers are randomly scattered around – is quite difficult.

Each road in the UK has a street name – usually given on a big sign at the start of a road, unless it’s been stolen. I used to drive around London quite a bit back in 1994, which was largely pre-satnav, so I had a book called an ‘A-Z’ with an index of street names in it – which you can quickly look up if you’re lost. So as long as you know what street you’re on, you should be fine. It was quite important back then because if you think the traffic in Busan is bad – try London.

White on Blue

Speaking of driving, I actually didn’t realise Korea had an address problem though until recently, because I don’t drive here, and I didn’t really think about it. Back in the UK, it used to be a habit to look for street name signs, but these days we just rely on our satnav screens. When I learned the address system was changing in Korea, I started thinking about those street signs and the fact that the Korean ones – such as they are – are really quite different. In the UK the street names are big white signs with huge black lettering, whereas here you get quite small white lettering on a blue background – it doesn’t help that they have to put both the Korean and English on the signs. I’d say the letters end up being about a quarter of the size in the UK – so they aren’t easy to read from the road. For that matter, I hardly notice them as a pedestrian.

Given that there seems to be this process going on now of creating new numbers and road names in some cases, I could help but wonder if there were going to end up being 10,000 Dokdo Streets. But however they did it, apparently Busan got the best score for their new system.

It’s all a bit low-tech

I don’t think the new system will help me get around better though, because I don’t recall ever looking for a building based on its number. That’s technology again – I just use Naver’s equivalent of Google Street View. For example, when I was looking for Busan eFM for the first time I ‘walked’ in the ‘street view’ until I found it. Even if you don’t hap the street view option, these days you have smartphone maps as well.

The subway system is my map

I feel like I spend most of my life in Busan down in the subway anyway – emerging at the required stop – and 90% of the time I’m almost there. I suppose the subway system works a kind of map as well – everything relates to where the nearest station is. So basically I’m using the subway as my address system – in fact I organise my life around it.

Sometimes I have to make compromises because I’m only using public transport. For example, there’s a big store I want to go to [Costco], but it’s not really near a subway station – so I just have to find an alternative. It would be different if I had a car. But then the subway is so convenient. The first time I travelled around London I was 14 – the city is very large of course – but I got no sense of its size because I’d go underground, take trains, and pop up where I needed to be. It’s the same with Busan – which is ten times bigger than my home city but it doesn’t necessarily feel bigger because of the subway system. There’s no subway where I’m from and it might take an hour to get from one side of the city to the other – about the same length of time it takes you to do the same thing with Busan’s subway. Imagine what a nightmare Busan would be without its subway system.

Cost-Benefit

I read that the subway system in Seoul is losing money, but I think people have to see the bigger picture. In the UK everything is costed out very carefully, but I think it leads to a lot of short-termism, big projects are hardly ever done, and there’s no long-term vision. This is one of the reasons I like Korea – people still believe in big projects here.

What’s the cost-benefit of the Busan subway system? You will never truly know what the economic impact is, but you know it must be there. I suppose the new address system is an example of a big project – there’s lots of short-term inconvenience with long-term benefits we can’t be certain of.

My address is changing but I’m not moving

Certainly, the new address system has created some inconveniences for me. I have a Korean bank but I’m still heavily using two banks in the UK and I’ll have to tell them my Korean address is changing. This is much harder than it seems because they are useless [one of them has a branch in Busan but to change my address I have to notify my British branch in writing and the other already has the wrong Korean address but we’ve established that to change it I need to do so at my local branch in England... in person(!)].

The other problem is that the Korean immigration authorities are incredibly strict about the notifying of new addresses – if you don’t, it can count against moving you from a temporary visa (such as the F-2 I’m on) to permanent residence (F-5, which I’d like to have just so I don’t have to go through the performance that is the F-2 renewal). But then, if I’m staying in the same place, but my address is changing, do I have to notify them and when The problem is with this, in the experience of foreigners here, each immigration office tends to have their own rules and way of doing things [to put it diplomatically].

Last minute nerves

But maybe now I don’t have to worry about the address changes so much – because of course, the government have decided people aren’t ready for the new system, and have delayed it for two years.

I was surprised about this, because it’s been planned for long enough. People are never really ready for big changes, but you pick a date and get through it. For example, in the UK in 1971 we decimalised our currency. More recently, in 1999 many countries switched over to the euro currency, and that was a huge change.

But recently I read about a guy here that tried to order food with his new address and the takeaway said they didn’t understand it, which meant he’d only get his food if he gave the old one. So that’s the problem – people aren’t motivated to adopt a new system until they have to. There comes a point when you have to do it – but with attitudes like the one with the takeaway, I have a feeling that even after the change people will still use the old system unofficially for some time.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-05-25 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 30: Family Month

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Background

I prepare notes for my radio segment; I always felt that to be my best on the show I had to construct a narrative. Like most of the things I write, it’s more time consuming than the result appears to suggest or justify; I tend to debate each word and nuance in my head. Sometimes it turns violent. This week was a new low; the preparation time for my ten minutes on air was nine hours.

My topics are sometimes purely anecdotal experiences and while there may be deeper points to be made, the intention is primarily to entertain. But other times there are serious issues to discuss, and this seemed to be one of those times. I feel there are a lot of stereotypes of foreigners in Korea, often perpetuated by the media. One of the reasons I agreed to do a weekly slot on Busan eFM – and then sign on for a second season – was the notion that in just being out there and talking to a Korean audience – albeit one that is learning or already speaks English – it might provide more of an insight into the deeper thoughts and fears of a foreigner living here. I wanted to speak out. I think if you don’t, Korea is something which just happens to you.

But after kicking the ideas around in my mind for a long time, forming structure and writing sound-bites, I felt the result I wanted had eluded me. Writing to me feels like a game of chess, where the paragraphs are pieces and the various parts have to be carefully choreographed into a winning position. Except it’s not so much chess as blitz chess, played against the clock for suboptimal results. This week I really felt the need to win the game, but as it wore on I realised I’d forgotten how to play.

The powers that be at the station seemed to like it, but I’m not under the illusion that anyone really cares. In the end, my writing is as much about getting my own thoughts in order and understanding the confusion of contradictions that is myself, as much as it is about anything else.

Introduction

May is kind of family month in Korea, because of the close proximity of Children’s Day and Parents’ Day. So the TV channels are running lots of family-related programmes. Inevitably this includes the vaguely self-satisfied ‘foreigners integrating well into Korea’ genre of programming, and there are two main types of show – women from South-East Asian countries brought here via marriage brokers for older Korean men, and Western foreigners married to Korean women.

Reality and unreality

I find the programmes featuring the Western men fascinating. Some are obviously willing collaborators, but sometimes I feel that others have a kind of haunted look about them – the look of men who are trapped. There’s something in the body language and the tone of what they say in English. It’s a subtlety I suspect is lost on most of the Korean audience; it’s easy to focus on how well foreigner is eating kimchi or speaking Korean.

I suppose I don’t find these programmes realistic – certainly at least, they don’t match my experience. But then I’ve read a lot of foreigners talking on the Internet about their Korean lives, and these programmes don’t often seem to match their experiences either. They tend to create a positive image, but perhaps that’s not the reality. My wife actually said to me that she hopes her mother doesn’t watch too many of these shows, because they make me look bad in comparison.

Unfortunately she does watch them. In fact we were in a taxi a few ago and the female driver watched these programmes too. “Living with him must be ‘fun’” she suggested. My mother-in-law smiled, but gave no answer, which I think tells you the truth.

So I think these programmes make my life more difficult – I can’t live up to the snapshot positive image they create. I suspect that if I were on one of these programmes, even I’d look better than I am on them; I’d look integrated because I live with my mother-in-law, and now brother-in-law (again), but it’s not the reality.

It can be difficult marrying someone from another culture and living in that culture. It’s easy to feel isolated because of the cultural barriers and language barriers. There’s the pressure to integrate, to learn Korean, to conform, and it can create a lot of stress. My life’s pretty messed up really. Don’t get me wrong, I like living in Korea, but my living here is full of problems – and that’s the reality.

International Marriage Damage and Prevention

There’s been some controversy about these TV programmes in the last week, which stems from the rise of ‘anti-multicultural groups’ in Korea.

One group, the wonderfully titled International Marriage Damage & Prevention Center, plans to hold a rally outside KBS headquarters in June to urge the broadcaster to stop airing the programmes which they accuse of ‘beautifying’ multicultural families by creating ‘illusions’ about them. That’s basically the same thing I said, but the difference is that my concern is purely the portrayal on television of these relationships – I think it’s clear what these anti-multicultural groups really want is just for certain types of foreigners to be kept out of Korea.

I find it fascinating that they are mainly targeting migrant workers and imported foreign wives – not Westerners – even though we’re all part of multiculturalism here. Their argument is that migrant workers are taking away jobs from Koreans and ‘committing crimes’, and immigrant wives are coming here as part of marriage scams to ‘earn money’.

I think this ‘committing crimes’ thing is a huge clue as to where they are coming from. There’s always been a strong nationalistic streak running through Korean society, and there’s nothing wrong with being proud of your country, but there’s a narrow line between pride and hatred. The English author Samuel Johnson said that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. I don’t think he meant that all patriotism was necessarily bad, but he was highlighting how common it is for people who have no intellectual argument – or no intellectual ability – to dispense with rational debate in favour of appealing to people’s fears and hatred. I think Europeans like myself are especially sensitive to this kind of behaviour because of what happened in 1930s Germany and other European countries in history. Nothing good ever comes out of trying to make an entire country irrational and angry by lying to them, and it scares me when groups start trying to manipulate people by creating fear.

All Foreigners in Korea are (Potential) Criminals*

I don’t agree with these criminal accusations. I’ve said before that National Police Agency figures show that foreigners in Korea commit fewer crimes per-person than Koreans, and it makes sense if you think about it; if you’re an economic migrant – or any kind of foreigner here – the last thing you want to do is commit a crime, get caught, thrown out of the country and lose it all. Of course, a few foreigners will commit crimes, but these groups are trying to create the fear among Koreans that all foreigners are criminals – it’s certainly the implication of the statements they are making – and that’s just simple racism.

Even though they aren’t targeting Western foreigners, we’ve had these accusations ourselves in the past of course. A few years ago the newspapers were full of suggestions that foreign English teachers were coming to Korea and spreading HIV and AIDS. This time, these hate groups are attacking ‘economic migrants’ from countries perceived to be ‘inferior’ (i.e. poorer) to Korea, which is another thing that tells you this is racially motivated.

The odd thing is if you think about it – given the poor job situation in my country and especially America, many Westerners here are really economic migrants too. It’s not uncommon to hear native-English teachers here say they can’t easily go back home because there are no jobs. But these anti-multicultural groups aren’t attacking Westerners - strangely only people from other Asian countries seem to have this stigma attached to them - although if they aren’t stopped they’ll probably come for us next.

Of course, Koreans in the U.S. have committed crimes – some very high profile like the Virginia Tech Massacre. But how would Koreans here feel if American groups started campaigning for Koreans to be kept out of the country? For that matter, people from Busan have committed crimes in Seoul – how would Busan citizens feel if groups in Seoul said people from this city shouldn’t be allowed to move to the capital because people from Busan are ‘criminals’ or only going to Seoul as part of ‘scams’. It would be ridiculous, but then why should foreigners in Korea have to be treated like this?

Fairly unbalanced

I think these TV programmes are actually part of the problem. By making multicultural families look more positive than they are they are feeding these hate groups. I don’t know if there’s a solution, but it’s clear that migrant workers have lots of problems with discrimination and working conditions, and there have been numerous cases of immigrant wives being abused and even murdered by their husbands in recent months alone. Even as a Westerner, I have problems here. Of course, these groups are probably pretending that these things don’t happen, unless they are particularly ignorant – which is always a possibility.

But perhaps if these programmes showed more of these problems then maybe – like my mother-in-law has realised, and that taxi driver hasn’t – multicultural families are not necessarily as much ‘fun’ as they are made to look on TV.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-05-18 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 29: Smaller Fish

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Background

The new season at Busan e-FM has seen some changes, and one of them is a new segment which precedes mine called "Bigger Fish". The title derives from its coverage of literature and by extension philosophical issues which are the bigger questions we often rarely stop to consider in the prisons of trivia we build for ourselves in our daily lives. The content is thought provoking and I'm glad that the station is pushing the envelope as far as its material is concerned.

During my time with the station I'd like to think I've covered some hard-hitting subjects, even if a lot of it has been secretly dressed up under the guise of my personal experiences in Korea and hardly anyone noticed. But some of it - like today - isn't tackling racism, social inequality or anything philosophically substantive - so I titled today's topic 'smaller fish', proving that in the absence of other targets, I can always take a shot at myself.

Someone new to the station said that they'd worked out what most of the other segments were about, but not yet mine. I've been joking for some weeks that as I exhaust my pool of personal experiences and move into personal thoughts and opinions, my segments have increasingly become, in a Seinfeld-type of way 'about nothing' - although possibly without the humour - because there is no common theme running through them. In fact, this is now a running joke with my wife every time something trivial happens, punctuated with the punchline 'and that's a show' - as I struggle with the question of what I'm really going to talk about on air over the next few months. Maybe it doesn't matter anyway; I think the modus operandi at the station is to just plow on regardless sometimes - I suppose that's the mindset live radio creates for you.

Introduction

This week I'm returning to the subject of food - to talk about a specific type, and that's fish. I quickly discovered the importance of fish here, and perhaps a particular type of seafood is sometimes shocking for foreigners - and that's live seafood.

Going coastal

I’d been in Korea three weeks when my wife suggested that we go to the seafront to ‘eat fresh seafood’ with her mother, in an area of Busan with a harbour and a fishing fleet, from which you can take it that the fish are supposed to be especially fresh, even by the local standard of preferring freshly killed seafood – hence the large number of tanks crammed with barely surviving creatures you see on many streets.

Let me explain how this kind is in England. First of all, we don’t have those kind of tanks – the animal anti-cruelty groups would never stand for it, but we also don’t have much of a culture of eating really fresh - or raw - fish. Given that this is the case, freshness is less important because everything is going to be cooked anyway. But this isn’t to say we don’t have areas where the seafood is perceived to be better because we have fishing fleets there – we do, and when northern English people - ‘northerners’ - go to places like this, we’ll quite often seek out a good meal of ‘fish and chips’.

Fish and chips

Typically, ‘fish and chips’ consists of de-boned haddock or cod in batter, with thickly-cut potatoes fried at very high temperatures in industrial fryers, which makes them impossible to cook properly at home. A slice of lemon may be squeezed over the fish, and the chips are sprinkled with salt and a type of vinegar which seems impossible to find in Korea. It’s a very difficult dish to get right – for example, the potatoes taste different depending on the season and some times are better than others, and if the fish is cooked too long it becomes dry and unsatisfying.

Fish and chips became a popular meal among the British working class – partly because it was filling and inexpensive. When I was young it was really the only type of take-away there was in the working class areas I lived in. In that sense – it is similar to the cheaper seafood dishes in Busan which Korea’s working class eat.

When I came to Korea I assumed it would be impossible to eat fish and chips here. In fact, I worked out that the nearest fish and chip shop was in Australia. But I was wrong, because then I discovered that there actually was a proper fish and chip shop in Haeundae – inevitably – set up by a British expatriate. He wrote on one of the Internet forums here about the difficulty of setting up the business and getting the food right, and he even mentioned the near impossibility of getting the right type of vinegar. [Unfortunately it appears it's since closed].

The Battle of Songdo Bay

So, three weeks after arriving here I went with my mother-in-law and wife to Songdo Bay, a coastal area near us in the west of Busan that is regarded as a good place to eat raw fish. At that point I hadn’t even seen the sea in Busan yet, so given what I’ve said about fish and chips, I had it in my mind that we’d be dining in some sort of restaurant with a window view over the sea. The fish wouldn’t be haddock or cod, but rather some local variety, and Korean Mother might be eating something more exotic such as octopus.

But, as in often the case in my life in Korea, there was a considerable gap between my expectations and the reality which played out. It was windy and raining heavily. The restaurant was a seafront tent, in fact so close to the seafront that the tide was coming in and out of about half of the tent, which creates an interesting theme. There was no menu, but the food was picked from large bowls outside - most of it was unidentifiable and some of it was frightening. My mother-in-law picked some kind of sea slugs - which later I discovered were called 개불 - which was meant to be good for vitality. Ten minutes later thy were on her plate - minus their insides - but the loss of their internal organs was not stopping them trying to escape. I'm told they can live for up to thirty minutes like this. Then she chased the creatures round the plate with her chopsticks, which only seemed to make them angrier. I'd been here three weeks at that point as I witnessed the unfolding horror, and I thought, "What am I doing here?" and "Who are these people?"

I didn't try the 개불. I kept waiting for my 'when in Rome' moment, but it didn't happen. Even my wife wasn't eating them. Then I made a bit of a mistake. As the last few creatures tried to hide in a corner of the plate, I voiced my thought to my mother-in-law that these creatures would still be moving around in her stomach. For some reason apparently she'd never really thought about this before. So she continued, but without the same level of enthusiasm. The next day she didn't feel well, and it was two years before she ate 개불 again, which I feel partly responsible for. [More details and video here].

Bring your own fish restaurant

I haven’t eaten any other live fish here. In fact, the longer I stayed here the more I was put off by the idea. I’ll tell you the problem. Sunday was parents’ day so my mother-in-law once again wanted to eat fresh fish – we went down to Dadaepo Harbour this time, where the restaurants are just over the road from where the fishing fleet is docked.

Now it turns out that the type of ‘restaurant’ she wants to go to was one where you bring your own food, so she walked into one of the markets and before I had time to realise what was about to happen a two-foot long fish was pulled from a bowl, it’s neck or spine was immediately broken and the chopping along with the associated blood-splattering began, even though it was still moving. Then it was taken to the restaurant with us where it was prepared. I'm afraid it doesn't do much for my appetite. When I explained to my wife what I'd be talking about on the radio today, she said that the way I describe it, it "kind of sounds a bit disgusting". But then the next thing she said was "I'm hungry." Maybe it's a cultural thing.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-05-11 @ ~19:30

Busan e-FM Week 28: National Identity

About 'Open Mike in Busan'

Introduction

Well, unless you were hiding in a cave, this week has seen a huge global news event – the culmination of a ten year plan in fact. And someone who has proven difficult to pin down has finally been caught. I am of course, talking about Prince William and the British Royal Wedding. And this got me thinking about the subject of national identity – and what it means to be British in Korea.

Queen Elizabeth

I didn’t watch the royal wedding, but over 24 million British people did. The week before the wedding someone told me they weren’t watching it, and I didn’t even know when it was. Then I found out, because I received an email from one of my brokers covering the week ahead in the financial markets – and of course, the British stock market was closed.

According to a British newspaper survey, 37% of people in the UK were “genuinely interested and excited” by the wedding. That’s actually 23 million people – so presumably another 1 million watched because they were bored. A lot of people said it was a kind of Cinderella story, and I guess that Korean people can relate to that because many K-dramas seem to centre around a plot where a poor woman falls in love with a wealthy man, or a rich man falls in love with a poor woman, if you look at it from a male perspective, which often seems more important in Korea.

But if 37% were interested, it also means 63% were not really interested and didn’t watch, and I was one of them. I think to a lot of us our royal family is like a long running soap opera that refuses to get cancelled. But on the other hand, the queen is like our own version of a halmoni [elderly Korean woman] – stoically going on despite everything. So I accept she’s a national symbol. I guess Korea has it’s own modern-day royalty in a way, because I keep reading about ‘Queen Yuna” in the newspapers.

Queen Yuna

I didn’t watch the royal skating performance either, but I did see her Olympic performance last year, albeit accidentally. When she skated for the gold I was at a hospital having heart tests – but not because I was worried she wouldn’t win.

My wife told a friend that she might not have watched it if we hadn’t been at the hospital. She said her friend gave her an odd look. Maybe it’s not the sort of thing you’re suppose to admit to. I know there was a strong feeling of patriotism surrounding her performance – and I felt sorry for her because of that, because she’s very young and there must have been a lot of pressure on her; she’d become a national symbol but one, like the British royal family, that could easily disappoint. Of course we have had numerous disappointments with our royal family, and more than that, I’ve even had it with my government – and I’ve come to feel less British because of my experience.

The British Anti-Ambassador

I came to Korea to get married and then I was going to go home. Little did I know that by the time I set foot in England again my government would have done its best to prevent me from calling it home ever again, because they wouldn’t give my wife a visa and told me I was “free to live my life in Korea”. Those were the exact words with which I was effectively exiled. We won our legal case but there was no sense of victory after all the money and time we’d spent on the case. You know what the funny thing about governments is? When you break the law as a citizen, they send you to jail, but when they break the law (they did and I’m pretty sure they knew what they were doing as well), nobody goes to jail, and nobody apologises. That’s difficult when people expect you to be some kind of British representative.

Because there are relatively few British people here, I suppose sometimes I feel a sense that my behaviour and views are representing my country in Korea much more than they might be if I were American. So maybe I play this unwilling ambassadorial role. For example, an old Korean guy walked up to me while I was taking photos once, and after he discovered I was British he starts telling me how he owns a company and met the British Ambassador once – and how he gets invited to their parties sometimes.

I don’t get invited to parties at the British Embassy, and it’s a fair bet that there’s more chance of Kim Jong-il getting an invite than me. But this ajeossi tells me how much he likes British culture, and I’m trying to smile and be polite, but at the same time I’m thinking ‘why should I have to play this role after what happened?’ People say you tend to become more patriotic when you leave your country, but I became less.

National Identity Crisis

I might be having some kind of national identity crisis. It’s not like I feel welcome back home. What is it to be British in Korea anyway? Koreans have this notion of being a pure-blooded race ‘민족’, but there’s no British ‘race’ per se. Overseas Koreans are some of the most vocal defenders of Korean culture – even if they’ve never lived here, but I don’t think any British people really feel as strongly as that.

And there are lots of American brands here, with fast food, coffee and clothes retail. And what do the British get? One supermarket chain (Tesco Homeplus aka ‘Homeplus’ aka ‘Home plus’ aka ‘Samsung Tesco Homeplus’ aka ‘I can’t believe we’re not Korean’), and even that kind of hides its British origins. We can get a bit of British food there. There’s this kind of desperate discussion thread on a website for foreigners here (AFEK), where British expats talked in excited tones about being able to get their hands on tins of ‘Value Beans’ which are probably around 180 won in the UK but cost 1,000 won here.

Another problem with countries like Britain and America – wherever you are in the world, is that you also feel responsible for your country’s foreign policy – all the bad things that it does in your name. I think Korea doesn’t have that kind of issue as much.

The 51st State

I think my experience here is different from that of an American in some small ways. There’s always this worry in the background I think that American soldiers are going to get into serious trouble in Seoul – or American language teachers. But then often I get into taxis and the first question the driver will ask my wife is “is he American?” And you know, sometimes I sense this feeling of relief when my wife says no – he’s British. But I feel a bit bad about it as well, because the thing is with Brits and Americans is that we’re are all supposed to be on the same side now. Although you know what the truth of being British here is – we’re all Americans when we’re in trouble.

Links
Busan e-FM
Inside Out Busan

Air date: 2011-05-04 @ ~19:30