Discriminationism

Firstly, I know the title of this piece is crap, but I guess that is part of the point.  Perhaps there is actually a real word for this, but I don't know it, so I made one up.

Discriminationism:

"The propensity for people to jump to the conclusion that prejudice is the motivation behind other people's thoughts, words, and actions." 

I bring this up mainly because of all the talk of culture being involved in the recent Sewol disaster and allegations of "Culturalism" (again) against those who propagate the idea that Korean culture might have played a role.

There are other reasons, however, and they link to the foreigner experience in Korea.  I do believe that many people who come to Korea to work end up spending much more time on the internet than they would back home for a variety of reasons.  I think that this makes people come into contact with many popular causes that sweep around the web on social media.  I notice a few involving prejudice that make daily appearances on my Twitter and Facebook feeds:

1. Discrimination against women
2. Gay marriage
3. Celebrities saying naughty racist remarks, racist TV programmes, and music videos
4. Immigration 
5. "Culturalism" (Korea only)

The first 4 seem to be part of a liberal crusade at the moment and stories involving them are everywhere.  Let me first start by saying that I have many beliefs you might say were liberal.  I would be, pro-choice, anti-gun, for gay marriage, anti-death penalty, pro stem cell research, pro-euthanasia, and in the "Climate Change is real" corner.  I do also have a few classically libertarian and conservative views as well, however.

In all 5 of the listed above I see a great wave of "Discriminationism" going on.  Let's use some classic examples:

1. The disparity in pay between men and women is because of prejudice against women.  People who don't agree are sexist (most right leaning politicians fall into this bracket).

I would argue that there are a number of reasons for the difference between the pay of men and women, the least relevant is unfair discrimination.  The fact is that men and women make vastly different choices in life and prioritise different things, women tend to:

• Choose different lines of work
• Have babies (therefore take breaks from work to bring up children)
• Work less hours in full-time positions
• Choose less dangerous professions
• Want more flexible working hours (tend to choose flexibility over high pay)
• Do more part-time work
• Are less inclined to travel long distances or relocate for work
• Are less inclined to ask for pay rises than men

Instead of addressing these well-known points, most just ignore them and bang the drum of prejudice. They jump to the conclusion that Western society is still inherently sexist and people who don't see any unfair discrimination in pay are sexist too.  There is very little sensible debate between opposing sides.

http://www.upworthy.com/whats-a-penis-worth-turns-out-a-hell-of-a-lot-more-than-you-think-2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-crYzSA8Yw
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2615687/Bear-Grylls-rubbishes-sexist-claims-new-survival-The-Island.html

2.  People who are against gay marriage are homophobic.

I actually think gay people should be allowed to marry if they so desire, why not, right? What harm can it do?  I don't accept the arguments from the other side, but that doesn't mean I think they are all motivated by prejudice.  Some are, sure, but to jump to conclusions, like Will Self does in the video below is wrong. Peter Hitchens thinks this is a form of Liberal bigotry, I think he is right to point out what Will Self is doing is wrong, but this doesn't mean that I am on his side in the gay marriage debate (and I think the accusation of bigotry in return might be unhelpful).  I respect his right to a different opinion and would not make accusations of homophobia.

3.  Hypersensitivity is all the rage in popular culture

No doubt there are examples of racist celebrities, racist TV shows, and music videos and those that produce them should get their comeuppance, but the search for racism is going too far, to the point where every TV show has to show racial diversity, any music video that depicts another culture is using them or making fun of them, and any off-the-cuff remark by any celebrity is evidence that they are bigots.  But jumping to conclusions about celebrities is fascinating news for a celebrity-obsessed culture as we are, and we love to see the rich and famous humiliated or shown as flawed individuals.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/04/25/avril-lavigne-hello-kitty-video_n_5213491.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2513107/Katy-Perry-accused-racism-dressing-geisha-AMAs.html
http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/stephen-colbert-accused-of-racism-with-cancelcolbert-campaign-1201149494/

And in video games too:
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/05/reaction_mario_kart_8_accused_of_poor_sales_potential_ruining_battle_mode_and_racism

4.  A world without borders is a happier place, those who disagree.... well, you get the idea

I would love the world to be border-less, as an avid traveler it would be a dream come true.  However, at this moment in time it is not at all desirable.  The fact is, cultures clash. I know this better than most being married into a different one.  Some differences are irreconcilable for many people and this causes conflict. Multicultural nations can absorb people from other cultures, but it does take time.  Too much immigration, too fast, is a recipe for disaster and I think the open borders policy of the EU at the moment is causing too much friction in Europe, with right-wing parties starting to pop-up all over the place.

5.  "Culturalism" 

I have been purposely brief with the first 4 on my list to pay more attention to something more relevant to Korea.  Let me first say that I am sure some people have their prejudices towards other cultures and I am sure they jump to conclusions sometimes. However, I do not think that, a) There is an obvious pattern of culturalism in the Western media or in Western people generally, especially for explaining disasters, and b) that when wrong conclusions are drawn sometimes that this implies prejudice.  A couple of points below to illustrate what I mean:

a)

• People were justified in questioning Korean hierarchical respect culture for possible communication problems in the cockpit in the Asiana crash.
• People were right to question the culture of indifference to safety issues in Korea.

b)

• I believe people were wrong to conclude that Korean students were too obedient because of respect hierarchies or Confucianism, and that's why they stayed below deck, leading to their deaths. However, I can understand how someone with experience of Korean culture might think it.  It was an over-reach, though, as I am not sure it applied very well to that situation.  Wrong conclusion, yes, but was it because of simple ignorance, filling in time on 24-hour news or columns in newspaper or was it true prejudice?  When a Korean-American news reporter (Kyung Lah) thought Korean culture was a factor, I have difficulty thinking it was prejudice in her case. Generally, I think it was just a bad argument, but not the result of prejudice. Perhaps there were some reports where prejudice was a factor, but I think they were the exceptions rather than the norm. 

I see a hypocrisy in the whole culturalism argument.  Those who advocate this idea place incredibly high demands of proof before we can even question whether culture was even partly involved in a disaster.  Yet they require no proof whatsoever to assert that when people do question cultural involvement they do so as a result of a prejudice.

No only this, but surely there is a cultural accusation going on here, and that is the West regularly shows a prejudice in explaining disasters in Asia.  If the statement said, the West regularly gets things wrong explaining disasters in Asia, then I'd have no problem with it.  However, many go further than this (like TheKorean), they claim to know the mind and the motivation of writers like Malcolm Gladwell, journalists, and just ordinary people with an opinion.

If it was a simple matter of "you are wrong, I am right, and here's why", there would be little to worry about and we could have a good debate about it.  But it is worse than that, instead one side is saying, "I am right, you are wrong and the reason you're wrong is that you are prejudiced against Asian cultures."  Unfortunately, it is only then a short step away from accusations of racism as well and then moral superiority over the opponent is truly asserted and debate can be silenced, as funnily enough, people don't much enjoy being accused of racism, especially when they know they are not.  People that oppose modern-day liberal viewpoints are most at risk of being labeled racist and instead of debating with liberals, this fear drives them to watch sometimes radically right-wing radio and TV programmes in large numbers.  This could actually have the effect of turning people who genuinely have a point worth arguing about on some issues into an actual racist or inflame or create real prejudice.

This is extremely problematic, encouraging a whole lot of emotion and push-back from the other side.  Just like in the other debates I have mentioned, as soon as a prejudice is accused of good, unbiased people (not everyone will fit this category, but many are) merely with a differing opinion, you create a real "us against them" tussle.

The accusation of prejudice is something that must be much more carefully made or tension and resentment will be the result when it is made unfairly.  Black people having to drink from different water fountains to White people is clear-cut prejudice.  Explaining poor communication in a cockpit by invoking Korean respect culture is not an example of clear-cut prejudice as there are reasons to believe this could be the case. Argue the conclusion is wrong if you like, but keep the accusations of prejudice out of it.

Culture is not race, gender or sexual orientation, it is learned behaviour, not innate. Different cultures can be prone to different problems through certain aspects of their culture.  Respect hierarchies could affect clear communication and safety and attitudes to safety among Korean people could make dangers more likely. Attitudes towards food in many Western countries could make obesity and ill-health more likely.  Cultures are not equal, therefore the prevalence of explanations regarding ill-health and Western food culture will happen more often and disasters will be explained more often by using Korean attitudes to safety and the interaction with their elders and superiors.  We are not obligated to explain negative connotations of cultural attitudes equally between all cultures in all situations.


Unfortunately, I do think there is a real concerted effort going on in liberal circles to silence arguments, not with good points, reason, and evidence, but with slurs on the opposition and appeals to emotion.  There is a way of thinking going around at the moment that if you don't subscribe to, you are a fit target for abuse and are always on the defensive.  You are guilty until proven innocent of prejudice, and to prove this innocence you have to absorb a series of barbed verbal and/or written abuse (I know this better than most on this blog).  I think most just give up the discussion because of fear or social ostracism.  What a sad state of affairs for good, honest, reasoned debate and the search for truth.  Sure, name and shame those that are truly bigots, racists, sexists, homophobes, etc.  But people should start by making sound arguments first and benefit of the doubt should be given.  Innocent until proven guilty, remember.

Is Everyone Deeply Moved by the Sewol Tragedy?

I have been contemplating the possibility that I am one seriously heartless bastard lately. This may surprise some of the people who know me best because I think they would say I am a really nice guy, not short of an opinion or two and a bit argumentative, but nice nonetheless.

So why have I been thinking this?  Well this is going to sound horrible, but I really don't have a huge emotional response to the Sewol tragedy.  However, I am interested in it for sure, it is a fascinating story of calamitous errors, negligence, and corruption, and there is an interesting debate about the causes, the culture, the government, and all that.

Don't get me wrong, when I see a report I get a little sad and angry because I teach high schoolers in Korea and they are a great bunch of kids and I am a human being with a soul (no, really I am a human being, the soul bit is a just a figure of speech as I don't actually believe in all that stuff, but you know what I mean).  But after I have finished reading an article or watching a report on the Sewol disaster, I emotionally switch-off very quickly.  If I am being honest with myself, I think this means that I really don't care that much.  What I do care about, though, is the potential for something to happen to me or someone I love in Korea because of a safety concern, as Korea is not the safest of places when it comes to having avoidable accidents.  This is, however, slightly mitigated by low crime; I am far more likely to find myself with a bottle smashed over my head for no reason in my own country, for example, so I lose little sleep worrying about a disastrous tomorrow.

I lose even less sleep thinking about those poor passengers on the Sewol, but judging by what I have read, everyone else appears to be deeply moved:

From the Wall Street Journal:  Children's Day Becomes a Day of Grief

From CNN: Ferry Disaster's Toll on Korean Psyche

I just don't feel this way and maybe I married a heartless Korean woman, but she is hardly at the point of despair either, in fact most I have met, Korean or not, as this tragedy has played itself out over the last few weeks have not seemed that upset either.  Maybe they are good at hiding it or I'm terrible at seeing it, but with the people I know well, they must be damn good actors.  I simply am not observing this deep sense of sadness, guilt and mourning that other observers say they are experiencing here.  Maybe there is a greater intensity occurring in Ansan and the surrounds of Seoul, where most of the writing has come from and where most of the passengers that died came from.  But I know one thing for sure, not all expats, not all Koreans, and certainly not everyone worldwide has been "deeply affected by the Sewol tragedy".

So, I hate to say it, but I am left with the feeling of scepticism that what is being written by many is an accurate expression of their true emotions, or the country's as a whole, and not just a popular exaggeration. I get the same feeling with news broadcasters, that they are saying what they think they should say rather than genuinely feeling it.

This sounds unfair, I don't know what is going on in their heads.  In my head, I read with scepticism and the feeling it is a bit sickly sweet and OTT.  It is surely my problem, not theirs, what's wrong with me?  Why don't I feel the same sense of sadness?  I am sure what they wrote is genuine and from the heart, but I can't help but feel the world is awash with people who say they care, but really don't.

I don't think I am in the minority of people who are - when you think about it - a bit heartless.  With so much suffering in the world not only occurring, but being beamed on to our computers and TV screens, it would be impossible to run our daily lives without regularly going into fits of depression if we cared so much about it all.

It could all be down to evolution.  Altruism has more than likely evolved in an environment of small groups of, often related, kin.  We have evolved to care about the suffering of others right in front of our eyes and to those we are closely related to.  Fortunately, the urge regularly fires-up for strangers and even animals when we see them suffering pain or distress, but it still usually needs to be happening right in front of us for us to take notice. Is this why I feel something when I watch a news report about a tragic event, but then it subsides quickly when I switch off (the old 'out of sight, out of mind' tendency)?  In a classic argument by Peter Singer (The Shallow Pond Problem), he highlights this misfiring of empathy and morality with a simple thought experiment (skip to 2 minutes in for the argument):

Another favourite writer of mine, Sam Harris, has written about this failure of compassion as well, but also highlights another concerning misfiring of our instinct for compassion, empathy and caring, and that is that it tends to go down with the more people we see or know are suffering (see 'Genocide Neglect', Slovic 2007). This partly explains the success charities have with adoption programs, where instead of giving money to help 1 million people in Africa affected by malaria, we sponsor one child instead.  Of course in reality, your money goes to help many people, but by appealing to just one, the charity is more successful in making people donate.  Harris explains this 'moral illusion' in the video below at 58mins 30 secs:

So it appears that I am not unique.  In a way, I am envious of the bloggers and writers I linked to above if they really do genuinely feel that way and show it.  Because as much as I know I should feel a great deal more empathy for the passengers and the families of the Sewol tragedy than I did, say, when my in-laws tied a puppy Jindo dog named Noah up outside in the cold (that I took care of for a while, read this post), I don't.  I can logically understand that I am wrong here and that I have warped priorities, but I don't feel emotion for the passengers with anywhere near the same force as I did for that dog, not even close.

I know this lack of emotion in me for such tragedies in the lives of others is a real problem in the world. Without the emotion, people will fail to act in meaningful ways to stop mass suffering, and sure enough, people do just that, I do just that.

I do see a pattern occurring in the world of the internet at the moment.  When you work in Korea, you have a lot of time, often at work while desk-warming, to browse around the internet and writing this blog encourages me to do this even more.  What I see is heaps of moral outrage, emotion-filled messages of support for those in need, and internet campaigns to improve the lives of others and fight injustice in the world.  But too much of it seems empty and pointless at the end of the day; lots of words, no action, and the moral outrage and outpourings of emotion never last long on one subject, we just move onto the next story to get our emotional fix and we are saturated by examples of injustice and sad stories.  I think it is problematic because it creates the illusion that something is being done and the illusion that you are helping, when in reality, nothing is being done and you yourself are doing nothing as well.  While the internet has a strength in raising awareness of issues, its weakness is definitely in what I describe above.

I am troubled by my lack of compassion, not just about the Sewol disaster, but all manner of problems in the world and the fact that until writing this sentence I hadn't really even given a moments thought to the fact that undoubtedly significantly more lives were lost on the roads in Korea this year.  Why care about that any less? Perhaps it is impossible to care about everything, or perhaps my heart is not capacious enough, maybe I am indeed truly heartless.

Note:  Due to criticism that I might be insinuating disingenuous shows of emotion by fellow bloggers I have removed quotes from them out of good taste.  It was never my intention to question their motives and I apologise to those I did quote if it came across that way.

Lessons from the Buddha and the Sewol Disaster about Living in the Moment

I thought I'd focus on a theme that bears some relation to topics I have written about recently as well as a little more regarding the Sewol disaster, and that is the quality of life of teenagers in Korea.

One thing that makes this whole disaster possibly even more upsetting is the number of young people who were the victims of it, mostly high school students.

The tragic death of a student at my school a couple of months ago got me thinking how much of his short life seems to have been based on studying very hard for a future he will now sadly never experience.  Now, with the horrors of the Sewol disaster as well, this has hit me with even sharper focus.  I wonder whether the young survivors of the disaster will now look at their lives rather differently and strive for a richer life in the present and not simply search for their (or their parents) ideal future.

I am often saddened by the amount of times I ask the question, "What did you do this weekend?", to my students (of a range of ages across all the jobs I've had in Korea, but most recently my high school students) and their answer, even in the school holidays, is "Study".  I used to have a private student, of 13 years old, who spent 12 hours every Sunday in the library, and the vast majority of his waking hours on every other day of the week studying as well - not by choice I might add - and his situation was not unique.

In recent history, many people in the West have looked to the East for answers about how to live the good life and be happy, and specifically they have often looked to Buddhism to show the way (my own cousin can be named among these people).  The West's focus on material possessions, money and building for a better future are all called into question by a belief system that focuses on relinquishing the material and an inner peace in the here and now, rather than dwelling on the past or putting too much emphasis on a dream of a better future. Right here and now is all we really have, yet most people's attention is firmly rooted in the past or the future, never really appreciating the present moment.   I, like many people perhaps, often find myself looking forward too much and not enjoying the present enough.

I am no expert on, or a follower of, Buddhism, and I believe most of its claims to be bogus, but one thing I am not sceptical about is the value of practices like meditation to enlighten ourselves about the here and now and the importance of it and taking time to try and rid ourselves of the plethora of thoughts and worries buzzing around in our heads.

Despite Korea being a country with strong Buddhist traditions and a great deal of temples dotted around its mountainous landscape, Korean society appears to have totally lost touch with some of the principles of Buddhism that could really do it a lot of good.

Ironically, I have heard a number of Korean people criticising Western culture for being overly materialistic, but Korea is a place that values material wealth more than any other place I have ever visited.  It is also a culture obsessed with the future. People are always searching for a perfect tomorrow; to go to a good university, to get a good job, to get married, to have children, to help pay for their parents retirement, etc. Now we all do this to a degree, but many Koreans take this to the extreme and pressurise young people into thinking about their futures all the time in a very inflexible and expectant way, hence the crazy education culture, the general lack of sleep, and all those hours of hard work and study.

From my viewpoint, my hope is that the Sewol disaster might just serve to give Korea as a nation a wake up call (although I'm not terribly optimistic); not just about practices regarding safety, but as a reminder that all of us are just one second away to our ends, one step away from walking in front of a bus, one diagnosis away from falling terminally ill, and one journey away from never returning.  If this happens to us at any age, could we look back on our lives and say it was all worthwhile, that we lived as good a life as possible, or even simply that we enjoyed life while we had it?

We all need to plan for the future to some extent, but when I think of the all the high school students on that ferry my thoughts turn to just what the last few years of their lives would have been like.  If they are anything like the students I have come to know in Korea, most of their time will have been spent with their heads in books, night and day, and being pressured by parents and teachers to prepare for a tomorrow that might never actually come.  Korea is now an economically wealthy, well-developed country, isn't it about time it used this fact to make the people happier and aid them in living more fulfilling lives?  It feels like this aspect of the disaster has been somewhat ignored, so far at least.  With any luck at some point in the near future, the next time a young person dies, their short time on this earth won't seem to be as poorly spent when much greater happiness and life experiences were possible.

Korean Teenagers and Well-Being

Over the past two years or so I have written frequently about what a stressful and depressing life Korean teenagers are having in Korea, so it was to my surprise that South Korea came third recently in a study of well-being in teenagers from different countries.

In the linked article above, I do think the title is a little deceptive, in that although well-being and happiness are linked, they are not the same.  I would argue strongly that South Korea is not an example of a country with especially happy teenagers, and I'm sure many would be on my side.  Korea's notorious suicide statistics and a recent poll finding that about half of all teenagers have contemplated suicide, would also seem to contradict the notion that South Korean teenagers are the third happiest in the world.

It is interesting to see how the study was compiled and how it favoured Korea in the parameters it measured:

"To create the index, the researchers looked at 40 indicators to assess "citizen participation, economic opportunity, education, health, information and communications technology (ICT), and safety and security" among the world's youth (defined as people 12 to 24)."

Listed in among the factors quoted are some of the really fantastic things about Korea. There is no doubt that in some departments Korea has done many things right, especially the last three; health (in young people), ICT, and safety and security.  General organisation and efficiency in Korea is also something I find much better than in many countries, particularly my own.  Life for teenagers in Korea is certainly convenient, well-organised, and relatively free from dangerous temptations and situations.

However, the problem with fairly narrow studies like this is the lack of attention to detail and the message it may send out.  Education is a perfect example; while I am sure Korea scored highly for education (it regularly tops world league tables), Korean education of the young is something that significantly contributes to unhappiness.  One can't help but also notice that if you keep students cooped-up in a classroom all day (and on many occasions, all-night), of course they'll be safer.  Just like house cats have less danger and tend to live longer than those that are given free reign to go outside and come and go as they please.  But what kind of cat would you rather be?

Economic opportunities is another thing to be careful in making assumptions about happiness, because while Koreans do have opportunities and in my experience finding a job is much easier (for Koreans and non-Koreans) than in my own country (Korea has the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD), work life in Korea is stressful.  Koreans work some of the longest hours, taking away time with family and friends and time for relaxation. Hierarchies at work also cause troubles, giving their bosses too much control of their lives.  Young people are always at the bottom of these hierarchies, often leading to the worst of working conditions, and the lowest levels of respect and job satisfaction.

But even if it was crystal clear that South Korea was doing a better job than most other countries with regard to the well-being of its youth, does this mean it is doing good enough?

What has always fascinated me about Korea is that its problems are so obvious, and what's more Koreans are so aware of the problems they have in their society, they just seem powerless or unwilling to change them.  It is not a question of Johny foreigner coming over here and noticing the problems they can't see, in my experience very few Koreans are ignorant of the issues they have in society.

In a heartbeat South Korean society could make things so much better for young people if they simply took some of the weight off their shoulders.  The obsessive compulsive nature of education in Korea is the major culprit of unhappiness.

Even small steps would make a great difference; students could still study long hours for example, just give them less homework and encourage more sleep.  As I said in last week's post, why are Korean high school students sleeping only 4 or 5 hours a night? Surely, a healthy amount of sleep would improve their performance and make them happier at the same time.

The study on well-being actually does show some huge positives for the way Korean society has been organised.  Korea is so close to being a place that is really great to live.  There are many ways in which Korea trumps other places in the world to live, but fails in ways that are so unnecessary it becomes frustrating to be a part of it all.

In my own personal opinion, there are a few key issues that would really make Korea a wonderful place to live if they could change their ways slightly:

1. A less rigid adherence to respect culture hierarchies.
2. A greater respect for worker's rights (and individual rights generally).
3. Less concern with petty status games and jealousy.
4. Being less OCD when it comes to education.
5. Being less nationalistic.
6. Enforcing laws (e.g. traffic laws).

Korea has always struck me as a nation of extremes in these regards; it would only take a little adjustment of each of these factors and one might see Korea rising to the top of more positive tables and statistics, like those concerned with well-being, and lifting off the bottom of the less desirable measures of societies, like suicides.

Korea's Contempt for Sleep

Recent research suggests that a lack of quality sleep can kill brain cells, and this comes on the back of a great deal of research suggesting a range of health-related problems due to not getting enough shut-eye.

As a person who is almost obsessively into exercise, I have always been aware of the value of sleep in rejuvenating the body, but I had always just assumed that everyone else did also.  I think most people in England know how important sleep is and try to do their best to make sure they get enough, although many ultimately fail for different reasons.  In Korea, however, I am regularly surprised just how little sleep people are getting and how most simply don't see this as a big deal.

The story starts with my high school students - who I always feel sorry for.  These guys are at high school from 8am until 10.30pm and this is bad enough, but I asked them one time about what they do when they finish school and some of the replies were quite shocking.  Some - indeed many - go for more schooling at a private academy (Hagwon) and many have homework on top of this.  I questioned them about when they go to bed and most said about 1 or 2am.  They then usually woke up at about 6 - 7am on school days.  This gave an average of about 4 to 5 hours sleep a night for most students, 6 hours being a luxury.

I would go as far to say that maintaining such a sleep pattern in growing adolescent boys is impossible, or at least unhealthy, and it may actually be detrimental to their studies (it must be, surely).  Sure enough, high school students can be a sleepy lot at school, which makes them sleep in classes and lose concentration. They also talk about the subject constantly:

Teacher: What do you wish?
Student:  I wish I could sleep all day.

Teacher: What did you do at the weekend?
Student:  Sleep.

Teacher:  What do you enjoy?
Student:  Sleep.

Teacher:  When are you happy?
Student:  When I'm sleeping.

Teacher:  What did you do in your vacation?
Student:  Sleep (and study).

Teacher:  What's your ambition in life?
Student:  To sleep for 24 hours in a day.

I could go on and on, I'm sure my students mention sleep in almost every class.

The physical health risks of lack of sleep are well documented, but there is also a significant risk to mental health.  A recent poll in South Korea suggests that half of Korean teenagers contemplate suicide.  The combination of societal pressure for success, long hours of study and lack of sleep seems to be taking its toll on young people.

It is not just young people, though, a general contempt for sleep seems to pervade throughout Korean culture, synonymous with the hard-work attitude Koreans feel has elevated their economy and wealth in such a short period of time.

I teach a couple in their fifties conversational English in the evening after school. They have an annoying habit of calling me 30 minutes before their scheduled class sometimes and cancelling. Sometimes I rush through my day, fitting in workouts in the early morning so I can teach them in the evening (sometimes I am even on the way to their place when they cancel).  I told the wife of the couple they need to cancel earlier because I am very busy, but this seems to have made little difference.  Anyway, this led us on to chatting about how busy they were, the wife especially.  She seemed to own at least a couple of businesses and said she was always in meetings and at work, or at least working at home.  I asked her what time she went to sleep at night and she said at about midnight; not too bad, I thought.  But when I asked her what time she woke up, she replied, "at 2 or 3 am".  I couldn't quite believe her, she doesn't even look that tired most of the time; 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night after working all day?!

Now, she could be lying of course, but I don't know why she would and even in the unlikely event that she was, one would have to wonder why she would proudly say that she only had 2 or 3 hours sleep a night.

This seems to be the case with basically everyone I meet here, I think I am yet to find a person who sleeps 7 hours a night or over and there is a strange tone of pride in their voice when they tell me how little they sleep. Are people really working this hard and sleeping this little?

Recently, Korea hit the headlines for more negative reasons in articles that claimed South Koreans had the lowest productivity at work in the OECD.  This article suggests many very good reasons for this, but lack of sleep doesn't really get a mention. However, very much prevalent in the summation of the situation is that appearing to work hard is more important than actually doing so.  Is that what people are doing when I ask them about their sleep patterns?  Are they just giving me the impression that they live hard, busy lives?  My own feeling is that there could be a combination of both true hard-work and lack of rest and some porky pies to make them look even more diligent.

It is true that, at certain periods in your life, you may need to sacrifice quality sleep temporarily in order to get important things done, but there appears to be something more permanent about Korea's attitude towards sleeping.  It is taking, "You snooze, you lose" to extraordinary new levels and apparently many are proud of it and parents, businesses, schools, and society demand it too.  Could Koreans benefit from more sleep? Surely, their lives would be much happier and more productive if they took a little more time for some quality rest at night.

Saturday Night Live Korea's Adoption Sketch: No Need for an Apology

Outrage has become the insatiable hunger of our time in the West.  People will step over their own mother to find it and show everyone they know what a morally well-rounded and high-class person they are.  It has also become a way of winning arguments. 'I'm offended!' = discussion over, 'I win', and that is what passes for debating these days.

I have found outrage is especially apparent when anyone criticises any non-Western culture (the weak ones that can't handle what we think), but sometimes criticism of Korean culture (I think many Westerners living in Korea think of Korean culture as inferior to theirs so they think it is wrong to criticise aspects of it) by expats is justified if it looks like Koreans are picking on a vulnerable group or people that are less strong than they are.  Many of these criticisms are completely valid, but some are not.

So, with this in mind, I am going to defend those at Saturday Night Live Korea for their little comedy sketch. (Translation here). Not so much because I think it is really funny or a valid representation of adoptees, but because I am pretty sure I don't know enough and don't care enough to be outraged about it, and I get a little tired of misdirected and phony outrage.  I'm guessing that I might be in the minority with this viewpoint though and what I say here might offend people.


I Don't Know Enough

My wife and I have overcome many cultural differences to be the happily married couple we are today.  We understand a great deal more about each other and our cultures than we used to.  However, one of those things we just have to accept is that she just doesn't get British humour and I don't get Korean humour.  This doesn't mean I can't make her laugh, but it does mean that when I watch Korean comedy - in film or on TV - it is simply not funny to me most of the time, even when I get the jokes, and the same goes, vice-versa, for her with British comedy.

This is because comedy is often (not always of course) very subtle and the elements that come together to produce a sketch, a program, or a movie are derived from a close cultural understanding of language (which even a fairly fluent speaker might not be able to pick up on), the history of the subject being made fun of (either as a country, in society, or even in previous TV programs or in films), and the cultural context.

For instance, I have heard that the skit in question on SNL is actually making fun of a specific TV program that used to run in Korea and Korean dramas where they used the subject of adoption (quite possibly many times) and airport meetings of adoptees and their real parents as a subject for melodramatic shows of emotion (cue the tears and piano music).  Most foreigners living in Korea would not have known this and probably most adoptees - who had not spent much time in Korea - wouldn't have known this either.

I find it ironic that many of the same people I see criticising foreigners who complain about Korean culture for 'Not knowing enough' (on some pretty black and white cultural issues), are slamming SNL in exactly the same way.  They don't get it, they don't know enough.  All they see is an attack on adoptees, but if you watch the video again with the above explanation in mind, it paints an entirely different picture.

I don't blame adoptees for getting upset, but I do believe those that became outraged misunderstood the sketch and overreacted.

In a similar case, but not involving comedy, an England cricketer (Graeme Swann) remarked to his brother on Facebook - a few months ago - that England got 'arse raped' by Australia in their test series after losing the 3rd match.  The PC brigade managed to find this remark and spread it around social media and rape charities in the UK were angered about it and demanded an apology.  It was simply an off the cuff remark of a disappointed man in a message to his brother (in a very common British colloquialism), but he had to apologise nonetheless.  It feels wrong to condemn rape charities for overreacting doesn't it? After all, unless you have been raped how can you really know what they are going through, so surely it was irresponsible of Graeme Swann to say what he did.  Perhaps he shouldn't be quite so profane in his everyday language, but was it deserving of such outrage?

Rape is a disgusting crime and we should have the greatest sympathy for people who have gone through it, but that doesn't mean these people didn't overreact, it was a ridiculous reaction given the circumstances.

Although this is not comedy, I think a similar situation has occurred with the SNL sketch; outrage gets magnified as it's spread around social media and it becomes very difficult to take a step back and see that it isn't really that outrageous.  Much graver misfortunes are made light of in comedy all the time.

Examples of 'Insensitive' Comedy Shows/Movies and Characters

Family Guy - Joe Swanson is wheelchair bound and jokes are regularly made of his situation.  Most of us cannot possibly know what it is like for people who can't use their legs, so it is not a fit subject for comedy.

Only Fools and Horses (UK) - Delboy and Rodney are brothers live together with their Grandad in low-level poverty in central London.  Their mother died when they were young and their father left them.  They live from day to day by making dodgy deals and selling tat at the local market and to their friends.  Many of us cannot possibly know what it is like to lose a mother when young or have their father abandon them or live in such poor circumstances, so it is not a fit subject for humour.  How can we laugh at their troubles?

The Life of Brian - A man called Brian is worshipped like Jesus and is eventually crucified.  Since we all have never been crucified (I hope) how can we find this a fit subject for humour?  And singing a jaunty song while on the cross!!  Disgusting.

Hot Fuzz - a London based cop gets more than he bargained for when he is transferred to a sleepy village when murders, disgusied as accidents, occur on a frequent basis. Since I and none of my family or friends have ever been murdered, this is not a fit subject for humour, I cannot possibly understand what murder victim's families must feel when they watch this film, it trivialises death and murder.  Ban it.

Seasame Street - Oscar the Grouch is clearly homeless and the Cookie Monster is clearly coping with a powerful food addiction.  How on earth we can all make light of such situations is crazy.  And it is a show for children!  Most of us have no idea what it is like to be homeless or have a strong addiction, again, this is not a fit subject for humour!! Pull the show from TV before more young minds get corrupted!

The disabled, parentless families, people in poverty, people being tortured and crucified to death, murder victims and their families, homelessness, and addiction, all being used as subjects for comedy in very very popular TV shows and movies.  Should we all be disgusted with ourselves?  Or would that be an overreaction?

I could have given a number of other examples.  The point is that there are many unfortunate situations we will never truly understand, many that are much worse than the subject of adoption.  Intelligent people can see comedy is comedy and making light of hardships is sometimes a necessary part of life and this in no way detracts from our ability to empathise with real people embroiled in really heart-achingly sad and difficult situations.

Personally, I can see how the SNL Korea sketch could be funny, it made me giggle at some points, but has it changed my perception of adoptees in any negative way whatsoever? Absolutely not. Might it change or accentuate bad vibes in Korean people towards adoptees?  I don't know, but I doubt it.  Now let's say the government made a policy change that stopped the reunification of adoptees and their Korean parents or discriminated against them in some way; then I might be moved to some level of outrage.

Comedy is comedy, and upsetting some people is its business sometimes, it tends to be funnier that way. Sometimes comedians step over the line, but the SNL sketch is nowhere near an example of that.


Understanding Comedy


I remember when some of us Brits got all upset by a Ricky Gervais comedy, 'Life's Too Short', because people weren't sure if Gervais just using Warwick Davis to make fun of dwarves and midgets.  But that's the thing with comedy, it is at its best when it is close to stepping across lines.

The day that comedians have to go the politically correct police (or Joe Blogger) for advice on how best to write a comedy sketch, we really will live in a dull, humourless world.


Making Fun of Language Ability

Another aspect of this sketch that I have found many people didn't like is the part that makes fun of the guy's Korean.  Some of the foreign community are crying, 'Oh my god, they are probably making fun of me when I speak Korean!'

So what if they are?  My students make fun of the way I say Korean words sometimes, I just laugh and jokingly say, 'Shut-up' or 'You wanna punch in the face?', which they find quite funny.  A sure way of getting them to continue making fun of me would be to act all hurt and angry about it.  Making fun of your pronunciation; it's nothing, get over it and it's a guarantee people will continue to do it if they see it bothers you anyway.  If it doesn't bother you, they just look silly when they do it.

I remember a while ago my wife and I were watching a Korean film about a mentally handicapped man with a young daughter who got mistakenly accused of murdering a little girl.  The way he spoke Korean bore a resemblance to the way I speak it and my wife noticed this and said so to her family and they made fun of me for it.  My reaction was not to cry like a little sissy girl (or point out how mental illness is not a fit subject for a joke), I just had to take it on the chin and laugh along with it.  It was quite funny, I did sound remarkably like him.

Making fun of pronunciation or language ability can be annoying sometimes and frustrating if you are trying hard to learn a language, but come on everyone, mummy stopped holding your hand when you step out the house a long time ago, time to grow up, have a thicker skin, and get a sense of humour about yourself.  Obviously no one likes to be heckled on the street about their language ability or generally bullied, but we are talking about a comedy show here.  Are people really that fragile or so easily led?


In summary then, some might say I am getting outraged over people getting outraged, but no, not really.  I am just tired of them making life less fun for us all and sitting on top of their throne of moral superiority and not admitting that a huge reason people get upset about stupid things like this is to help inflate their already sizable egos and make themselves feel important or special.

I am not innocent in this regard either, to write a blog in the style of this one, you have to have a bit of an ego, and I am sure my ego does leak into my blogs from time to time, but at least I don't require a sense of humour transplant.

As for the adoptees themselves who were offended by it, of course they can take offense to it and they can voice their feelings, but I think they need not, and in my opinion I think it is pretty lame.  There are a million hardships we will never fully understand that people suffer from and to erase every one of these situations from comedy is not only impossible, but would make the world a very boring place indeed. Somethings are truly damaging or irresponsible - like using a blackface gag in a Sunday afternoon family comedy show - but do we really think any harm will come, any rights trampled upon, or any prejudices enhanced by SNL Korea's mildly controversial sketch involving the issue of adoption? Surely not.

This has nothing to do with people demanding censorship, by the way, this is simply me reacting to the outrage produced.  People are totally within their rights to voice their outrage, as I am within my rights to say it's stupid.

Anyway, SNL Korea have apologised, so let's hope this makes people happy (I won't hold my breath).


Note:  A commenter very fairly asked where I looked for reaction to the SNL sketch. Roboseyo's blog first got my attention and I followed many of his sources as well as doing my own searches.  I'm afraid some reactions on social media are now lost, but here are some other links that I read from:

http://peaceshannon.tumblr.com/
http://www.adoptionjustice.com/
http://iamkoream.com/snl-koreas-offensive-adoptee-sketch-draws-protests/
http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2014/03/11/saturday-night-live-faces-backlash-for-adoptee-parody/

Cosmic Justice in Sochi?

David W. Carmichael http://davecskatingphoto.com/

So it seems Kim Yun Ah may have been cheated out of retaining her Olympic crown in the figure skating. Adelina Sotnikova could have had some home help from the judges to push the 'Ice Queen' into silver instead of the much anticipated gold that the Korean public demanded and felt she deserved. But it wasn't just the Korean public, apparently many observers from a range of different countries were confounded by the judges scoring.

On the other hand, there were some people who thought that Sotnikova had a more difficult routine and therefore scored more points despite a minor - but what appeared crucial - mistake during her performance.

In the wake of this controversy, everyone has become an expert figure skating judge, one way or the other. I myself, don't have a damn clue about how to score a figure skating routine.  From my perspective, Kim Yun Ah's routine looked flawless and beautiful and better than Sotnikovas (and Sotnikova's certainly not 5 points better), but what do I know? Nothing, absolutely nothing.  My thoughts don't matter regarding who actually won.

With this in mind then, let's assume, for the sake of argument, the decision was a scandalous one and that the Russians fixed the whole thing and cheated Kim Yun Ah and the Korean public.  If this is the case, it's wrong, annoying, and an example of sporting injustice.  But what about cosmic justice?

I find it slightly ironic that Korea's number one sports star, and someone whose performances mean so much to the country, may have fallen foul to a controversial home bias decision at an Olympics.  Why?  Because one of the most blatant examples of home advantage cheating at any Olympics was perpetrated by the Koreans themselves at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 when Roy Jones Jnr fought Korean Park Si Hun for gold in boxing.   You can see the full fight and judge for yourselves below:

Now, I'm not a boxing judge either, but this fight was the equivalent of a figure skater falling 5 times in a routine and still winning the gold in the face of an almost perfect performance by a competitor.  Everyone knows that this decision was highly motivated by what many Koreans thought were bias decisions by American judges at the Los Angeles Olympics in the boxing 4 years earlier.  The history is well summed up over at Gusts of Popular Feeling, along with some other issues regarding boxing at the games.

It is one thing getting even by a little cheating in a contentious, closely fought fight, but the obviously fraudulent decision in the Roy Jones fight was shameful and reflected badly on Korea.

Swings and roundabout then, and it seems rather apt that many Korean people feel cheated by the judges in Sochi, some might say it couldn't happen to a more deserving country.

It is tempting to think this way and to believe cosmic justice has been done.  But personally, I do not believe in justice of this kind.  If something was wrong then it was wrong.  If it was done dishonestly, then that is even worse.  And I know one thing for certain; if Kim Yun Ah really was the deserving winner and she has really been cheated out of a gold medal, then she does not deserve it, forget about Korea as a country.

The revenge aspect of the 1988 decision with Roy Jones is also something any right-minded person or Olympic organisers in a country would steer clear of.  One hopes - but does not expect - that Russian athletes will be treated fairly in 4 years time when Korea hold the next Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in 2018.  Unfortunately, the likelihood is that if a Korean ends up battling a Russian for a gold medal in an important event (especially the figure skating), Korean organisers may see it as an opportunity for retribution. Let's hope this is not the case.

An Olympics of any kind presents both opportunities to flourish and fail for the host nation.  These days, it seems, people are waiting for what a country will do wrong in the lead-up to an Olympic games.  In Russia's case, there were question marks about morality (think stray dogs), of the construction of the venues, and the general organisation.  In London 2012 for the summer Olympics, questions were being raised before the start about the competency of security and of problems with dated infrastructure and poor transport.  In Pyeongchang in 2018, the worry will be fairness and impartiality.  Can South Korea, a country with a fiercely nationalistic mindset (it was about 90% Koreans who managed to crash the change.org site, and all for figure skating!) manage to not interfere with the results of events?  The temptation for revenge was too great in 1988, so will it get the better of them 30 years later as well?

It will be a test for the character of a nation and it is an opportunity for Korea as a country to show they are above this kind of skulduggery and insecurity now.  They now understand the burn of being cheated like Roy Jones Jnr.  I hope they can react to Kim Yun Ah's disappointment in the best possible way, rise above it in four years time and do their best to be fair to all athletes who have trained so hard for the chance to be Olympic champions.  They and the world demand that they be judged on their performances, not on where they were born.

The Necessity of Lying in Korea

Picture by  Stepher Uhlmann http://su2.info/gallery/stills/lie (http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en)

One of my favourite writers and speakers currently is the neuro-scientist and philosopher Sam Harris.  In his most recent book, "Lying", he sets-out his case that the world, and indeed our individual lives, would be much better if we dispensed with the fibs and were just honest in almost every situation.  He gives some examples of when lying might be necessary, but they mainly involve situations that could result in violence and therefore lying then becomes a means of self-defense (I will let you imagine some scenarios).

I personally agree with him, we would undoubtedly be better-off if we could all be more honest with each other.  However, I have noticed how difficult it is to meet his suggested challenge of consciously making a point not to lie (even the tiny ones) for a whole week - to see how often we might do it - while living in Korea.

In a society with Confucian values, elders are to be respected at all costs and I do think this puts extra pressure on the ability to be honest; sometimes honesty actually feels disrespectful and when the clashing values of two different cultures go at each other head-on this can cause some significant difficulties which may necessitate lying.  Even without cultural differences Koreans appear to lie to each other surprisingly regularly, especially when it comes to their family, which has shocked me a little.  Since day one, I have always disliked respect culture because of this necessity to lie.  It is not a measure of true respect that one needs to lie to people and especially family, I think it shows the opposite and the behaviour is more motivated by social pressure and fear.  In this confusion between fear and respect, South Korean culture makes the same mistake as the regime in North Korea.

The times I am regularly tempted to dish-out a few porky pies occur in two situations in Korea, at work and with my wife's family and I am going to give a few examples of dilemmas that have cropped-up from time to time.

When it comes to my in-laws, my wife tends to do the lying for me, partly because I am exquisitely uncomfortable with it and also because my Korean is not quite up to it.  One, rather massive fib we told my in-laws occurred a couple of years ago during my winter vacation from work.  There was only a small window my school allowed me to get away for a few weeks and I was thinking about a trip to Indonesia.  The only time I could get away, however, clashed with the Korean New Year holiday (Seollal).  My wife told me that her parents would never allow me go away at this time and that I should be with the family; my response was to say, "Well, I am not asking them, I will go if I want to, period."  Knowing that this would be a problem (my poor wife is often stuck in the middle in cultural problems such as this), my wife told her parents that I was going home to visit my family in England.  With the tensions that are often experienced and expected between the parents of married couples in Korea and the importance of family, they would not disapprove of this. 

To me, this seemed a bit immoral, I would have rather stood-up to them, apologised, and ultimately tried to explain how important travel and new experiences were to me and my freedom to make my own choices.  On good authority, however, I have been told many times that such a show of honesty would have been a big mistake if I valued my marriage.

These sorts of situations occur quite a lot; I have often got last minute requests to join my parents in-law for drinks with their friends - on a couple of occasions just as I was preparing to go to bed.  I simply refuse, which gives my wife headaches, but again she lies and says I am sick or I have an English class with someone or some other work to do.  I have to say, I have become more comfortable with doing this as time goes by.

Of course one of the tricky things with all this lying is the potential to slip-up at a later date because you have to remember all the lies you've told (as Sam Harris mentions in his book).  Even this aspect of lying is something I find completely different in Korea to living in England.  I find in England, people really are more interested in the truth, and especially parents, but in Korea not so much.  I believe the showing of respect holds greater importance.  This all means I rarely, if ever, get tested on the lies my wife and I have told.  In the Indonesian example, I visited there in January and February and came back with a markedly different skin tone, with tan lines where I had worn sunglasses.  Now, it could be that my in-laws were just ignorant of English weather in January and February, but they never remarked on this rather telling sign.

"He who is not sure of his memory should not undertake the trade of lying" - Montaigne

In fact, they never test me or my wife, ever.  I suspect they know, at least sometimes, when my wife lies to them to avoid conflict in such cases, but I am convinced that they don't really care.  The above quote is simply not relevant to me.  Goldfish can get away with lying in most situations in South Korea.

When it comes to my job, I have also had circumstances where being honest has become incredibly difficult.  Duty and being part of the group are very important factors in Korean culture and this holds particular relevance at work.  One of my personal bug-bears with Korean culture is the forced participation and enjoyment of workplace functions and activities.  I think it is particularly troublesome for women, but I have found it rubs me up the wrong way also.  Obligatory attendance at staff dinners and outings (and the forced drinking that results) are things that I am sure many Koreans hate about their culture, especially as they have to pay for them.  On paper they are not mandatory, but everyone knows the consequences for not joining in, which include ostracism at work, a generally harder time at work, and even bullying and the loss of a job or promotion opportunities.  The whole thing is one huge mess of dishonesty; younger, lower-ranked workers never want to participate, yet say they do and all the older, higher-ranked workers know the younger ones don't want to join them, but make them do it anyway.  They are lies the culture necessitates and that everyone accepts.

A special case of this occurred with me at around the time leading-up to my school's yearly festival, often quite a big deal in Korea.  It was the time of Gangnam Style's height of popularity and so it was decided that some of the younger teachers would do a Gangnam Style dance routine as a performance.  Most of the younger Korean teachers had been practicing for about 3 weeks before I was finally asked if I wanted to join in.  After replying that it wasn't really my cup of tea in as polite a manner as I could, several times, I was cajoled into going to a practice session.  The reality of it was they were demanding that I'd be in the centre of the performance and practice "diligently" (as they like to say) outside of my school hours to get up to speed with the rest of them.  The routine was also devilishly complicated for a slightly reserved Englishman with two left feet.  On top of it all, I had really grown a special hatred for that song because of the Korean obsession with it at the time and the amount it had been played.

Needless to say then, I refused to join in with the rest of them and no matter how many times I said this, "no" was simply not an answer they were willing to accept.  I was beginning to think I should have lied, like I had a bad knee or something, I think I would have only needed to say this once and then they would've eased-off and I would have heard nothing more about it.  Instead, though, I was hounded and told in the end that it was my obligation to do it.  With my heckles raised at this point, I tried very hard not to get angry and calmly disagreed.  I eventually had to sneak out of the school when they were not looking to get out of one more practice session, which they were going to physically drag me into doing.  I actually had to craftily tip-toe my way out of the door, can you believe it, no honesty was going to get me out of this mess.

The result of this was the cold shoulder treatment for a month or so and the implicit suggestion that they might not renew my contract for the next year.  If I had lied, my life would have been a hell of a lot easier and they would have liked me more.

On a smaller and more regular scale, one of the teachers I truly like at my school often takes me out for lunch every week.  While I appreciate this, I become a little uncomfortable because he always pays and I am saving for emigrating to Australia, so I cannot return the favour.  He is still happy to pay, but I really feel as though I am in his debt.  I also really enjoy the lunches at my school and this doesn't eat-up my entire lunchtime, like it does when I go out for lunch with him.  I wish we could just have lunch together in the school canteen.  In Korean culture, though, I just don't think being honest with him is feasible without causing a fair bit of offence.  At the time of writing, I just refused the offer of a biscuit from the admin lady in my office and her reaction was as if I had just ran over her dog or something, she looked genuinely upset.  I should have lied about wanting the biscuit and just hid it under some papers on my desk if I didn't want to eat it.

I'm not saying I never lie or that I am perfect, but I do try and live my life as honestly as I possibly can and I can remember past lies that came back to bite me when I was found out.  Having to remember all one's untruths is also a hassle I could really do without.  Along with the practical reasons for not lying, I feel a pang of guilt surging through me that makes me extremely uncomfortable when I do lie, so I still don't do it very much, even in Korea.  I do often let others do the lying for me though in Korea, and this is especially relevant with my wife and her parents.

In Western society too, being honest can hurt you, and I think Sam Harris brought-up the examples of people who exaggerate their CVs (resumes) having an advantage in employment over those who are honest and write a true CV.  However, I strongly feel that honesty is far more valued in Western countries, and if you are discovered to be lying this is deplored far more than in Korea at least, and possibly Far Eastern culture generally.  I also think people in Western countries are more interested in exposing liars and this holds especially true for parents and their children.

With this in mind then, while I agree whole-heartedly with Sam Harris about an honest world being a better one and a honest life being better for the individual, I must say that I think it depends.

I think Korean society would certainly be a better one if people lied less, just like Western society would be, but for the individual I am left scratching my head a little as to the best answer.  When it comes to our everyday lives, I think it is much easier to be honest in Western culture and that the fruits of the labour of being honest can be enjoyed fairly swiftly.  In a respect-based culture like Korea, on the other hand, I am more sceptical; honesty in this culture can cause real problems, not just in getting ahead in matters to do with work, but also in relationships generally.  For the benefits of not lying to show themselves to the individual, the whole culture would have to change, but I don't think this is the case in the West.

Should Race and Culture be Off-Limits in Comedy?

Image by Gage Skidmore

Having lived in Korea for nearly 5 years now (and married into a Korean family for over 3 years), the way Korea and Asia as a whole is portrayed in Western media and the entertainment industry and the reaction to this portrayal has been something that has interested me quite a bit. I can remember the kind of picture that was painted for me before I lived in Korea and now I can actually analyse whether there is any truth and fairness to how they do it. However, as to whether some of the material put out there is offensive and wrong - and if so how we should deal with it - well that appears to be a matter of some debate.

The entertainment industry is an area where the subject of racism towards Asian people comes up frequently in the field of comedy. Let's first focus on Seth Macfarlane, who has come in for a fair bit of criticism recently for some of the scenes he promoted for his new sitcom "Dads" - weeks before the pilot even aired - because of its use of some Asian stereotypes as a subject for humour. Many have also argued that the show that made him famous, Family Guy, also has gone too far and stepped over the line (numerous times) into racism, not just of Asians but other races too.

Huff Post Debate
Dads on CNN

A couple of other examples also became prominent recently on Jimmy Kimmel and on the Dutch version of X-Factor when a Chinese man auditioned.  Both are neatly summed-up in this article in the Atlantic.

I actually agree with the conclusion in the piece in the Atlantic that anti-Chinese (and even Asian generally) racism is a greater problem than many people realise in the West.  As I wrote in a post on my own site a couple of weeks ago, I myself was shocked at how people in my own country treated my wife when I lived there for a year with her.  There is a big taboo on criticising or making fun of race and culture in the UK, but it doesn't seem to be helping much in alleviating people's ignorance on the matter and making Western countries free of prejudice.  I do believe the taboo on race and culture has reached the limit of its effectiveness and it is time for some honesty and open dialogue.

Jimmy Kimmel and the Dutch judge on X-Factor appear to be pretty cut and dry examples of attempted comedy that is not funny and that stepped over a line.  With the Dutch judge it is easy to see why he was wrong, he simply discriminated against another human being, treated him differently, made a joke of him as an individual in front of the audience, and made him and everyone else feel mightily uncomfortable as a result.  With Jimmy Kimmel, the joke was bad taste, but the fact that such a nasty thing was uttered from the mouth of a child also probably helped push the joke into being something wholly distasteful.

When it comes to comedy generally, however, I do see a great many issues and it is not clear to me how best to handle things and where to draw lines, if that's indeed what we need to do.

Being Offended by Possibly Racist (in fact any) Jokes is Almost Always Counter-Productive

The minute people become offended by something, when it is presented as comedy, they run the risk - 90 times out of 100 - of only benefiting those they are upset with. If you are the member of any sports team, you may learn to pick this up quite quickly. The producers of "Dads" played the game perfectly; they got their exposure on the news and had people talking about the new show. When the show actually aired its first episode the probability is that more people tuned-in. Of course, they ran a fine line between notoriety and a ban, but if they had agreed this plan of action to their broadcaster beforehand, there was very little risk of that actually happening.

The other reason becoming offended works in the comedian's favour is that the jokes they make only end up being funny precisely because of the potential offence they might cause. If it could be plotted on a graph, one would see a steady upward curve showing a correlation between a joke's potential hilarity and its level of offensiveness, perhaps until you hit a subject that truly isn't worthy of humour and then the line will become a sudden precipice, the Holocaust for example, although even that is not completely untouched territory. Even AIDS in Africa can be manipulated by comedians to get laughs. Now I am not supporting these kinds of jokes (especially the AIDS one!), but the reality is that if a bunch of people get offended by them, it is more than likely a comedian has done nothing more than forwarded their career.

The sad fact for those who wish to rid the world of racist, culturalist, sexist, ageist, or in fact any bad taste humour, is that there is nothing less funny than political correctness and taboo and nothing funnier than breaking it. Offence simply feeds the desire to produce more of it and if you go down the road of constantly banning and monitoring everything, we end up living in a world lacking freedom of expression, controversy, one that is devoid of a sense of humour, and the ability of people to grow their own thicker skins and defend themselves (this is arguably already happening in the West). A good way to combat it is to confront stereotypes head on and expose them, and it turns out that comedians are often some of the best qualified to do this too.

Another way to kill a subject fit for humour is to make it commonplace, dull, uncontroversial, and tired. To do this, those on the receiving end must brush it off. It sounds a pretty insensitive thing to say in this day and age when we all worry about not offending each other and just getting along, and when some people are more vulnerable than others, but it is simply being pragmatic. Offence is like a defibrillator to a flat-lining joke that brings it back to life again and again.


Many a True Word is said in Jest

Trawl through some clips of Family Guy on youtube, for example, and one can find a large number of little sketches on Asian stereotypes. Here are a few examples:

How God Made Asians
Asian Woman Driver
Asian in-laws
Asian Santa
Asian Family
Asians are Good at Maths
Japanese Girls Laughing
Chinese Dry Cleaners

On all of the above clips I think I can safely say I have known many Asian people born in the UK who are nothing like this and indeed many Koreans who are not like this, but the reason they are quite funny is that I have also known a considerable amount of Asian people during my travels that have fitted each of these stereotypes rather perfectly, far more so than people of a Western background. They are generalisations about behaviour, but they are - it must be said - quite accurate when it comes to identifying patterns of behaviour in at least some Asian people, especially those who were not brought-up in a Western country, let's be honest.

What I would really love to see is a comedy program created in a non-Western part of the world that has similar themed gags about Westerners, especially White people. Perhaps I could even suggest a bit of material for them; licentiousness (especially when drinking), being over-weight, arrogance, dumb kids, reality TV shows, clinging to the past (UK in particular), bad dancers, slow runners, lazy workers, ruining beautiful parts of the world, etc. What most of these categories and the Family Guy videos on Asian stereotypes show is that the vast majority of these jokes are not about race at all, they are about culture. Asian, Black, or White racial characteristics just make people more identifiable as belonging to a certain cultural heritage. Here are a couple of specifically White racial/cultural jokes from Family Guy, but you can also find plenty of jokes based on stereotypes of other Western countries and a great many about my own:

White Guys in a Race
White Guys Scared of Other Races
The British

Besides, much of the comedy that revolves around using stereotypes these days makes fun of the people who really believe they reflect the behaviour of everyone in a particular group and use it as a means to discriminate, as much if not more so than the group they seem to be mocking.

Western Culture Rebels against Censorship, Thrives on Disobedience, and Enjoys Disrespecting People Who Want to be Respected (at least in principle)

Of course, there is the historical and power dynamic at work here, which makes the whole situation so volatile and it should not be over-looked. Non-Whites will argue that the history of the world makes it a fair bit easier for White people to take a joke about either their race or cultural heritage and there is no doubt this is true. The scales are not balanced, it is simply not fair. The problem is that the world is not fair; how are we to balance the scales? Have an age where Black and Asian people enslave, impoverish, and belittle White people? Would this then make it fair on both sides, so we can start afresh and not worry about joking around with each other? This is not how the world works and not how it moves forward and I realise this is all very easy to say as a White guy, but you can't get around it.

It probably is true that many people from Western countries (again especially if they are White) have a slight superiority complex, particularly when it comes to non-Western cultures, so how can people of other cultures and races get past all of that? Complain to a culture that values freedom of speech and disobedience to authority that, "You can't say that", "It is not fair", "That's not funny", or "We demand you stop and be more respectful." It sounds horrible to say, but this is just not realistic when it comes to comedy. Such things will only fuel the flames and are like a red rag to a bull for many. The ironic thing is that most of the calls for censorship of sensitive material regularly come from Western far-left liberals on the other culture's behalf and it doesn't realise that it simply encourages it even further. Like a vicious circle, the more offended they get, the more they have to be offended about and the more other cultures become the butt of jokes.

Some of the Reasons for Making Fun of Others are Down to Insecurity

This is following the same line of argument as the people who make fun of and bully gay people being the most likely to be closet homosexuals. Unfortunately, race is still an issue for people in the world and culture also, so with this in mind the rise of the East may have unsettled more than a few Westerners and perhaps especially Americans, who have held the honor of belonging to the richest and most powerful nation for a while now (I have certainly noticed more Asian-dissing comedy in the US than the UK). When joking around goes too far or when racial or cultural comedy is taken too seriously, we can often expose jealousies, fears, and insecurities, which are present in many people with regard to Asians and Asian countries. A realisation that this is indeed the case in Asian communities may well help them soften the blows, provide piece of mind and indeed aid them in fighting back.

Try not to be Too Serious or Over-React

Personally, I was a little shocked at the recent reaction to a group of young people dressing-up as the Asiana pilots at Halloween. The article I have linked was so pathetic that it almost served as comedy itself, especially as the writer obviously couldn't see the irony in his little flow diagram at the end. I don't think there was really any harm in wearing what they did, but I am pretty damn sure it didn't deserve the attention and general vitriol that it got either.  In a more recent example, Katy Perry's embarrassing, but harmless performance at the American Music Awards garnered a similar reaction and calls of racism, culturalism or at least disrespect.  Both serve to show-up what is an over-sensitivity towards issues of race and culture.  This over-exaggerated response of outrage clouds minds to more serious issues caused by a shocking level of ignorance among many people.  I believe this is because of lack of dialogue about the problem of racism down to political correctness and social taboos.

When it comes to comedy at least, making fun of others is pretty much the norm, it isn't going to go away and if you really think about what makes you laugh on a day to day basis, no one should wish it to disappear. All one needs do is acknowledge it as comedy and not fact and therefore treat everyone you come across as a separate individual, without prejudice. The argument is, however, that allowing such comedy just reinforces people's stereotypes of others. What the factors above tell us though, is that getting angry and trying to ban a brand humour merely is the best way of perpetuating it, promoting it, encouraging it, making it a lot more interesting and funny, and stops people from having serious debates about it and learning from it.

"A joke is not a joke unless it is at the expense of someone else." - Unknown

For comedy to be effective, one need only pick up on patterns of behaviour in others, and generalisations of this kind can offend, but I think we are all going to have to live with it and at the end of the day.

There is however, a time and a place for the more edgy and possibly offensive kinds of comedy.  Racial or cultural jokes have no place on the news for example.  More responsibility and care must be taken and I do seriously wonder sometimes whether Western news media are doing a good enough job in this department, let alone other TV programs that are meant to be more family orientated like X-Factor, but we will leave that for another day.  When you tune in to a show like Family Guy, you should expect that some of the material is going to be offensive to some people, when you go to watch a stand-up comedian like Ricky Gervais, Billy Connolly, or Jimmy Carr you should expect the same (sorry, I don't know many stand-up comedians of other nationalities).

To sum things up then, I think I am going to pull a quote from a previous post on stereotypes:

"I have always thought of humour as a key ingredient to getting along with anyone and I think this also applies between groups. When we can make fun of and laugh at each other, without worrying too much about offending each other, this is often a show of acceptance, respect, and generally liking someone and being friendly. In fact, jokes at other's expense are often a test and an invitation to join the group and to test the water as to whether we can trust the other person, especially in men."

There will of course be examples of jokes that are genuinely insulting and done for the purpose of maintaining power or just simply being nasty.  Sometimes outrage is necessary, but we don't need many of the over-blown reactions common in Western culture at the moment in matters of comedy and entertainment.  It does us no favours in ridding the world of prejudice.  Putting social pressure on controversial statements or words in the form of social taboos had an effect, it reduced prejudice and discrimination and raised consciousness, but now it is time to move on and be able to talk openly and honestly about race and culture to take equality and friendship between our fellow human beings to the next level.  Comedy often thrives on blunt honesty and could be the best way to set us on the path to a better relationship between the races and cultures.