How the Treatment of Dogs in Korea Should Shake our Conscience on Eating Meat: My Story

First an update on Noah the dog (original post here), after my concerns about how my in-laws were taking care of him I was then slightly disappointed to learn that they also couldn't keep him.  Why oh why they couldn't have realised this before they got him, lord only knows, it could have saved them, me, and more importantly the dog a lot of heartache.  For a variety of reasons my in-laws had to give him up.

Despite the chopping and changing of owners being horrible for the dog, I am at least optimistic about who they have given the dog to; a man who owns other dogs and doesn't believe in keeping them tied-up outside.  It seems as if he has other dogs and cats also, so if he can train Noah well enough, it seems like he will have a lot of company.  It is certainly far from the perfect solution, but it is at least not the worst that could happen.

So, on to matters of eating meat.  I was a vegetarian for about ten years from the age of about 20.  I became one not because I knew all that much about how animals were farmed or slaughtered, but simply because I was reading quite a lot of moral philosophy at the time and was logically argued out of it.  Basically, there is not any good reason why we should rear and kill animals purely for our own pleasure when clearly the results of doing this are against the animal's best interests or choices (the fact is we should not assume their choices or make them for the animal).

I was fairly strict (in that I wouldn't eat seafood also) for most of these ten years up until I arrived in Korea.  For the first year, I ate seafood in Korea as I found myself struggling for vegetarian options (especially as I was so inept at sorting things out at the time generally), but still no meat.  However, after I met my wife and started working in a public school I lapsed into eating meat also.  My reasons were based around the lower availability of meat alternatives (especially in school food) and the great advantage it gave me in keeping my in-laws and work colleagues happy.  I can eat basically anything and I love Korean food.  You wouldn't believe how much easier this makes my life in Korea and also how much more liked I am for being this way by Korean people.

Still, I did not eat that much meat generally and in the last few months I have stopped buying it completely, but still eat it if my in-laws serve it up or if it is unavoidable in my school dinners.  I still don't drink milk and avoid dairy products as much as possible, but for more practical reasons as I am lactose intolerant.

A few weeks ago, however, I decided to go back to being a strict vegetarian again.  What prompted this change?  It was the feelings I had about Noah's situations and the hypocrisy of  eating meat at the same time.

I was so concerned for Noah, so much so I was prepared to turn my life upside-down to keep him in a ridiculously unfavourable situation.  Even when I realised the expense and the trouble of taking him to Australia, I was for a time trying to find ways in which I could do it.  All this despite the fact he was almost impossible to take care of in my small apartment, on my own, and with my work commitments, which was causing me a fair amount of stress.  When I had to give him to my in-laws as planned, and then saw the conditions they were keeping him in and the way they were looking after him, I was almost moved to tears.

Noah wasn't being abused by my in-laws, just neglected slightly and not treated with the love and attention I thought a dog needed.  His quality of life was not up to scratch. 

But this got me thinking while I was eating pork ribs (galbi) round my in-laws house.  The dog was outside and I was worried about him, but here I was tucking into meat from a pig that probably had a far lower quality of life than most dogs would have, even in Korea.  I knew also that there was no real reason to differentiate between the suffering capacity of a pig and that of a dog.  I was a hypocrite, I cared so much about this cute fluffy thing outside because he had become a part of my life and I could see him and his relatively low-level suffering, but I cared very little about the pig I was eating.  The only reason I didn't care was because it was out of sight and out of mind.  Willful ignorance or delegation of responsibility of rearing and killing what I ate were not good reasons to continue eating meat.  I was eating it, I spent money on buying meat and I therefore supported, not only the killing of the animals, but of the cruel factory farm practices where approximately 66% of the animals eaten in the world come from.

A while ago I received a comment on one of my blog posts saying exactly this (here) and the person in question lambasted me for being a hypocrite.  Essentially, the comment was right, but I thought it was a tad judgemental.  She did not know that I knew about all the issues and had been wrestling with them for quite some time while also dealing with living in a different culture and family (and that I had been a vegetarian for so long).   The writer of the comment basically said what many Koreans say when confronted with how they treat dogs and the fact of eating them, "well you eat pigs, cows and chickens, don't you?  What is the difference?"  In my posts on abortion and the treatment of dogs in Korea I stated some of the reasons why I do think there is something special about a dog and that the way they are treated does tell a story about morality in Korean culture.  I stand by what I say, if you can't even treat our closest friend in the animal kingdom with some compassion and respect, I don't think this is encouraging and is definitely going to make the job of animals rights campaigners much more difficult in the changing of attitudes towards all animals in general.

At least in Western countries more people do seem to understand that animals can suffer and our close relationship and care of dogs can help us achieve a base for greater compassion and empathy for other animals also.  Indeed, I think dogs can really serve as a consciousness raiser for Western people when it comes to the ethical treatment of other animals.  Of course, many Korean people have a love of dogs and animals, but the culture is very different towards dogs, especially bigger dogs and because of this Korea doesn't have the head-start most Western countries have in striving for the better treatment of animals.

That said, though, the vast majority of Westerners still don't really seem to care about what happens behind closed doors and the pleasure of satisfying their taste buds is simply more important to them than the suffering of other sentient beings.  In essence Koreans are correct, it is hypocritical of us to come down on them hard over the eating of dogs and the cruelty they sometimes show towards them.  As long as we all support factory farming, in particular, by continuing to buy meat products they will always have a point.  Their treatment of dogs and the use of them as a food source should serve to make us all feel uncomfortable about what is going on in the meat trade in our own countries.

Knowledge of what really goes on in the meat trade is important; one has a moral obligation not to simply turn a blind eye on what is going on and this is precisely what I had been doing.  Noah's predicament set me on the path to rediscovering the horrific amount of suffering we impart on animals on a shocking scale.  Reading a couple of books on animal rights by authors such as Peter Singer or watching documentary videos such as, "The Earthlings", is enough to put anyone off their appetite for eating meat.

On top of all this I have never heard an anywhere near convincing argument for eating meat in modern developed societies.  I watched a debate recently by Intelligence Squared in Australia on the issue of eating meat and I was fairly shocked how hopelessly inept the side in favour of eating meat were in defending their position.  Most people in my experience simply pretend do know things they do not know by saying things like "animals don't suffer" or "slaughter is painless for the animals."

It is hard not to become preachy as soon as you make the decision to be a vegetarian.  Once you realise the injustice of how we use animals for our own pleasure it is hard not to be outraged by it.  Factory farming, especially when combined with animal testing in science and medicine, compares frighteningly well to the Holocaust, for example, because if you can accept that there is even a chance that animals can suffer and feel pain in similar ways to which humans can suffer, our conscience should be heavily weighed-down by what is happening daily with animals.*  Back in 2001 an average of 2.5 million animals were killed daily for the purpose of food, the vast majority in abattoirs.  This figure is almost certainly much higher at present.

Perhaps the way forward is a compromise; I find it hard to be so upset about free-range animals as a source for food.  I think there are still problems with slaughter, but in principle the life of a cow roaming around a large pasture before being killed, for example, is less troubling.  In an ideal world though, there would still be a massive issue with regard to the moral treatment of animals because even ethically-reared animals often end-up going to abattoirs to be killed, which are grim places indeed, not to mention the troublesome issue of the transport of them to the abattoirs.  Even if the methods used to kill the animals were proved to be utterly painless, both mentally and physically, can we guarantee that every time an animal is killed this is so?  This seems to be a problem.

Think of your own job or even general tasks and hobbies and how many small mistakes you make over the length of one day; just writing the last sentence I had to make 3 corrections.  Make small mistakes in the killing of animals and you can cause extreme pain and suffering.  These mistakes become more likely due to time constraints caused by trying to process as many animals as possible in order to save/make more money and cope with demand from consumers.  This also assumes the people responsible for killing the animals in abattoirs are all well-adjusted, highly moral human beings that won't abuse the animals further, and considering what the job entails and the potential for a significant amount of desensitisation to killing and pain that must occur even over the space of just one day on the job, this seems highly unlikely.

So there you have it, a blog basically dedicated to promoting the idea of becoming a vegetarian, with some small relevance to living in Korea.  I guess though, that conclusions we come to in life and the following decisions we make can really be affected by traveling and living in other countries.  The true experience of another culture is often an unsettling one, which forces us to confront some uncomfortable issues regarding our own.  Sometimes we are well aware these things exist, we can play-out thought experiments in our heads, but actually having to deal with it first-hand in another culture often brings the message home with frightening and possibly life-changing clarity.  If you live in a culture different to your own for a long enough period of time, you will begin to slowly change many of the ideas, principles, and ways of living you previously thought of as normal or simply took for granted.  This is precisely why, as it is famously said, travel broadens the mind.

* Altered from the original piece to include, "especially when combined with animal testing in science and medicine" because of a point raised in my comments section by Burndog.

Asia shows the way in its Street Food, the West shows the way to a Heart Attack

I am having a bit of a war on Western food (from English speaking countries) at the moment and combined with a recent post of mine over at Asiapundits on enjoying food and food waste, I thought I'd use my own site to highlight some attitudes towards health and our food and what we can learn from Korea specifically, and Asia in general.

I don't know much about the United States, but from what I can gather from the news, my American friends and the internet the people there tend to be a little more overweight than average, my country is not far behind and to be honest it isn't hard to see why.

Recently, I have been watching a program on National Geographic Adventure in Korea called "Eat Street".  It charts the truck street food trend currently in the US, Canada, and occasionally other countries like the UK.  It always happens to be on the TV when I am eating dinner myself, coincidentally.  While I usually tuck into Korean food for dinner, I can see what Americans on streets all over the country are eating.

It is actually quite an interesting program and usually makes me quite hungry, even after I have finished dinner.  Sometimes, however, I have to admit to being quite shocked at what some people can put down their throats.  Here are some examples:

I always hear of the customers of these establishments saying how they often eat there everyday or a few times a week and I wonder how their hearts can cope.  I also see parents feeding some of the more irresponsible things to their children, some of whom are already grossly overweight. 

Of course, excess is kind of the point to these food trucks, but it is a fair reflection of where we are in Western culture with regard to enjoying food.  There is a definite feeling of, "This is so bad for me, but I don't care, in fact that's what makes me like it more."  I sort of understand this attitude because I used to have it myself.  However, living in Korea and also travelling to other countries around Asia have given me a new insight into how we perhaps should be looking at the food we eat.

The street food around Asia sums much of this up quite nicely.  Korea is the only country I have lived in and street food is probably not quite as good as in many other countries in Asia, especially Thailand.  While the street food in Korea is not especially healthy (it is also not especially unhealthy either), it is also not thought of as a meal, just a snack often during a night-out drinking.  The portions therefore reflect this and it doesn't seem quite so indulgent as the clips above.

Somewhere like Thailand, on the other hand, has street food sorted.  You can get anything from quick snacks to full meals, freshly prepared and often quite healthy.  When I was there, I did not see gluttony on the street, just a varied and interesting food culture.  I have traveled to a number of countries now in Asia and a pattern I see is that street food in the Far East is more about smaller snacks and South East Asia tends to go for actual meals.

While some might argue that the lack of health and safety regulations for street food vendors in Asia might cause health problems of their own, in principle the food on offer does not clog arteries or drastically expand waist-lines.  The funny thing about Western food culture generally, shown in many of the street-food trucks featured in "Eat Street" is the pride people take in looking death in the face while they eat.

The "Double By-Pass Burger" with "Flatliner fries" by Heart Attack Grill

I know the above picture is all in good fun, yet at the same time I can't help but feel that it sums-up a very serious attitude problem towards our relationship towards food in many Western nations.  In Korea, I have noticed people eat food for a specific purpose - other than just filling their stomachs - and this is to make them feel good, feel stronger, or to make them healthier in some other way.  Even if some of these reasons are bullshit ones, there is still a real thought to what they are eating having positive effects on their body, rather than simply fulfilling a gluttonous desire for sugar and fat because it gives them a big hit of guilty pleasure.

The interesting thing is though, Koreans love the taste of their food as much as anyone and I have learned to love the pleasure of eating Korean food also.  Once I coupled this pleasure for eating with the genuine feeling of well-being it gave me and the feeling of being healthy, there was no turning back.  To put it simply, my diet is no longer a Western one, it is predominantly Asian and mostly Korean (because that's what I know best).  Even Western food that is not fast-food or street food does not tend to make it onto my plate anymore.  Generally, I find it too heavy, too fatty, and too oily and it just doesn't make me feel good in the same way Korean food does.

If street food tells us something about the culture of the country we are in, what does the street food of the US or the UK tell us?  I showed some of these clips to my students at school last week as part of a lesson on food.  While a minority thought that the food featured on some of these trucks looked like the best thing since sliced bread, the majority were shocked by what was being consumed and many laughed at the number of fat people eating it and saw it all as a fit subject for ridicule.  I have to say, when you look at it all from the perspective of a culture with a greater connection between food and what it does for the body, I must agree with them, there is something ridiculous about it.

Perhaps I am being a little unfair, after all I did pick probably some of the worst clips of the most unhealthy food trucks to show you.  However, the healthy ones did tend to be exclusively non-American, non-Canadian, or non-English, and a great many of them had an Asian theme.  They also tended to feature much smaller portion sizes.  Huge portion sizes was something that shocked me on my only visit to the USA.  Here are some examples of the healthier food trucks on the show:

Of course it is just one TV show, but my experience of street food from back home is not a healthy one either; it mainly consisted of hot dogs, doughnuts, pork pies, pasties and not a lot more (not that Britain is especially world famous for its food culture).  I guess on a positive note the show does at least show how open most of our countries' people are to eating food from other places.  Unfortunately, however, the "good ol' fashioned" all-American food or English food that is served on most of these food trucks are often the worst examples of fat, grease, and general unhealthiness imaginable.

In reference to my post over at Asiapundits about waste and enjoyment of food, someone wrote that the poor attitudes to food we have in the West are mainly present in the cities and when you get outside of them people are eating locally-grown food and eating healthily and that I was mainly talking about a countryside vs the city phenomenon.  This was not my experience in England, however, and a little anecdote that sums-up our differences in food culture concerns the contrast in the schools that I worked at in England and my current school in Korea.

At break time in one of the rural schools I worked at in England (picture a classically old, rich English school in some of the most idyllic countryside you can imagine, it was a beautiful school) between stints in Korea, there would often be food in the middle of the staff room for all the teachers to enjoy.  100% of the time this would be cakes, chocolate or sweets.  While I tucked into some of this myself, I was often held back by a niggling guilty conscience about what the Koreans I knew would have to say looking at the scene.  I thought that they would say we were eating the kind of food kids would eat and that as teachers and adults we should be eating much better quality food, not to mention the number of over-weight teachers that were scoffing down cupcakes and fun-size chocolate treats.

The difference in my High school in Korea is like chalk and cheese.  Occasionally there is something sweet, but not nearly as sweet as back home, even the cakes in Korea seem to be lighter and less calorie dense (which is probably why they are not as tasty).  The vast majority of the time the only food that gets put out on our staff room table is locally-produced, seasonal fruits and vegetables.  It is a telling difference in culture.

When I see what is depicted of the US and what I see for myself in my own country, I wonder whether too many of us have a relationship with food that is totally dysfunctional and broken.  There is also a childish element to the way we eat; it is almost as if we need our mums on our shoulder all the time to tell us not to eat the things we know we shouldn't.  The fact that she is not there to do so means we can be naughty and do what we know is wrong anyway.

There is of course nothing wrong with a little indulgence every now and then, but when it becomes too commonplace we need to change our ways; there is an obesity epidemic in many Western English-speaking countries which is at the heart of a range of health problems.  This is down to our culture as much as anything else, a culture that is severely compromised in the food department.  We have slipped into some of the worst habits imaginable, consuming some of the worst food possible and doing very little physical exercise.  A connection between the health of our bodies and the food we put into our mouths has to be restored and looking to other countries that have better attitudes may help us break a rather dangerous spell of unhealthy eating that has been cast upon us.

Instead of doing this, however, we seem to be remarkably good at spreading our bad habits to other countries.  I hope Korea doesn't lose sight of what is great about their food as some of the younger generation appear to be slipping into the same bad habits as we are in the West.  Let's hope that Asia's food culture wins through in the end or at least the healthier aspects of our own food culture in the West.

My Experience of the Hypocrisy of Western Prejudice

Picture by Gwydion M. Williams (flickr.com)

Just so all of you know that I am not one to only bash cultures different from my own, I have news for you and this is I am getting a little fed-up about my own when it comes to matters cultural and racial.  While I refused to admit, in my much argued about post on White/Asian couples, that the whole issue revolved around Western prejudice, I certainly didn't say it wasn't a big factor.  It is definitely a real issue that is worth talking about.

The thing is that hardly any country in the West, especially my country of birth puts a sign up like in the picture to the right saying that we don't like people coming into our country.  Not many people want to confess to having such an opinion, but many have it.  Even if they don't consciously have it, it is my experience that a large number of people show it or are at least are uncomfortable with people from other countries - even people born in their own country but of a different race - without being aware of it and aren't honest with themselves about it.  In fact, the whole discussion (or lack of one) about multi-culturalism in Western countries seems mired in dishonesty.

As I have written before, I can remember a time - just before I lived in England for a year with my wife - that I naively assured my wife that we wouldn't have so many issues with prejudice because England is so multi-cultural and used to all this stuff and she would just blend right in.  Having had time to reflect on that year, however, and having a similar picture painted of Australia while my wife is staying there studying at the moment, the experience of comments on my blog, and the Western media generally, I have come to the conclusion that racial prejudice and discrimination is just as bad as in Korea, just in different less obvious and up-front ways.

I think there are some important areas where Western culture (let's focus on the country I know, the UK) trumps Korea in terms of treating people.  To me it seems a fair amount of prejudice is enshrined in law in Korea and a level of distrust of non-Koreans is promulgated in the media, which it is not happening in the UK and the West generally.  I also think that, while it is difficult to be accepted for who you are everywhere, there is a greater possibility of it happening in the West.  I am not optimistic, for example, that my in-laws or work colleagues will ever want to really know my opinions and accept them, I will have to follow the Korean way to be truly respected.  As much as they are mostly lovely people, it is extremely difficult to be myself with the vast majority of the Koreans I know. It is difficult in the West too, but one can have a greater success in the end.

However, there are ways in which many Western countries are worse, and the frustrating thing about it is that no-one considers themselves to be prejudiced and many think we have evolved beyond it.  All the talk of equality hides a secret prejudice that I'm afraid, in my experience, most people had when I was with my wife in the UK.

There are, of course the fairly obvious racists and bigots among us, characterised by the BNP and the EDL in my fair country (apparently the UK has the claim to fame of housing the greatest number of organised fascist movements).  But then there are those that think they treat all races and cultures fairly and equally, but fundamentally don't.

Picture by Matt Neale (Flickr.com)

It was always so interesting to me how people treated my wife in England (again I have posted about this before but it is worth re-airing).  Almost everyone, including my friends, were kind of stunned and had strange expressions on their face when I first introduced her.  Most of my friends (because they are a pretty fantastic bunch) got over this quite quickly and treated her like any other human being after a short while, but many others never were able to do this.

My wife really wanted to make English friends, but in one year in England it never really happened, the friends she did make were fellow immigrants to the country, which included Filipinos, Polish, and Hungarians.  I liked her friends, they were genuine in a way very few of the English people around her weren't, and this meant that sometimes my wife argued with them, was annoyed with them and they got upset with her too, but they made-up in the end, like friends usually do.

Her English aquaintances were markedly different.  Interactions with them were characterised by an inability to be straight with her; they would shower her with praise, say they would go out and never get back to her or actually do it.  Clearly they acted as her protectors; she was perceived as vulnerable, weak, and (I dare to say) even stupid.  I never liked the patronising way so many people were with her and I never understood it.  It all felt so fake.

In multi-cultural Britain I could see, first-hand, that cultures and races generally did not mix.  The vast majority of British people did not seem to have much inetrest in hanging around with people from another country unless they were thought of as from an equal - predominantly White - country.  I had some experience of people coming from the US, Australia, or even the richer nations of Europe and I never experienced the same patronising manner with them. 

Based on my experience, and in my opinion, the "uncool" foreigners were usually ready to be friends, but us Brits normally did not want much to do with them.  It hasn't even been two months in Australia for my wife, but it seems as though the same pattern is occurring there too.  The world of the foreigner appears to be completely separate to that of the natives.  Us westerners seem to talk a good game when it comes to integration, anti-discrimination, and treating others fairly and equally, and although at least our laws dictate we do, the reality is that we rarely put it into practice and especially in our personal lives.

Rules and Regulations

But there is another story too, and this is the enforcement of laws and the confusion of rules and regulations that often serve as a convenient excuse to discriminate or at least make life difficult for foreign immigrants.  We promise them a land where they will be treated equally under the law and a place where they will receive the same rights at work and in public as everybody else, but the situation is much cloudier than it appears.

The most damning indictment of equal rights under the law is argued in this post by Nick Cohen in the spectator, from which I take the following quotes:

"Women, gays, secularists, liberals and socialists from ethnic minorities ought to be able to turn to British liberals and leftists for support against the patriarchal men, who seek to control them. Rather than fraternal greetings, they find indifference and hostility. The mainstream of liberal-left opinion in the universities, media, civil service, and Labour and Liberal Democrat parties has convinced itself that it is culturally imperialist to demand that members of minorities should enjoy the same freedoms as the rest of us."

 "This is why there has not been one prosecution for female genital mutilation [in the UK]. This is why, when [a] 15-year-old white schoolgirl runs off to France with a teacher, the story leads the news, but when the parents of a Pakistani girl pull their daughter from class and force her to marry an old man —that is, when they organise her abduction and rape— liberal society stays silent. I should not need to add that multiculturalists who deny rights to people on the grounds of their ethnicity are every bit as racist as the white supremacists they profess to oppose."

Basically, the rights of the truly vulnerable are ignored because we must be nice to ethnic and cultural minorities.  This is the odd treatment of my wife blown-up to a larger scale to the point that it really is an injustice of huge proportions and not just an annoying and upsetting foible about British culture.  If we really were for this equality game, if we really didn't discriminate, we would treat everyone the same under the law, but this does not happen.  This all begins with the inability to treat people of different culture and often of different race in the same manner we would treat anyone else.  They are weak, they need our protection, so we can't say anything they might not like because we are not racists.  Hypocrisy defined.

These issues are not only present in major parts of the law and justice system, they also make their way into policies of employers. They have to meet their quotas for hiring people of different cultural backgrounds, for example, just like the South African cricket team used to have to pick at least a couple of Black players in their starting eleven. Again, this is not equal treatment. This positive discrimination causes resentment among the masses and is patronising to individuals in minorities who may want to get where they want to go on merit alone.

Personal Experience with Onerous Rules and Regulations that Effect People from Overseas

This starts with the small matter of the change in marriage visa regulations, which means I cannot live in England with my wife right now, part of the reason we are planning a move to Australia.  It seems as though now the UK only accept people with money.  At least I had not been living in the UK with children because that would have meant deportation for my wife, with children apparently only really needing one parent to look after them according to UK immigration law.  While I lived in the UK with my wife, we didn't earn anywhere near the amount required now, but we were not allowed to claim a penny off the state anyway.  She was not a burden on the tax paying public at all.

Before I even moved back to England for a year with my wife in 2010, we immediately encountered overly-complicated regulations with the the delivery of some of my wife's clothes from Korea.  The post office in the UK refused to deliver them unless my mother (we sent them to my mother to be there for when we arrived) paid about 250 pounds to customs because they assumed the contents were all new goods we bought abroad.  Of course they were just my wife's clothes, but they refused to open the boxes and check and said they would have to send it all back to Korea if we didn't pay and we had to claim the money back when we got to England.  Claiming the money back was one long and difficult process, as you might expect, but I began to be suspicious when I read the documents we had to fill in.  As an Englishman of generally good language ability and vocabulary in English, I could not really understand them.  The way they were written was crazy, it read like something produced from the post-modernism generator with too many overly obscure and long words thrown into the mix.  When you consider who is most likely to have personal stuff sent from another country into the UK, there was no way non-native speakers could successfully fill out these forms to get their money back, perhaps this was the plan all along.

Even when businesses serve customers, there can be some strange regulations that make their way through the equality laws.  To demonstrate this, a little anecdote from the UK involving my wife; one night my wife (23 at the time) decided to pop-out to our local Coop mini-market for a bottle of wine.  The legal age for drinking in the UK is 18, but my wife realised that people often thought she looked young (there was also a drive to ask anyone who looked under 28 at the time to avoid mistakes) so she brought her passport with her.  She was refused the ability to buy the wine because her passport was not an EU passport, and it was company policy that they would only accept EU identity documents.  A little miffed, she came back and told me to help her buy the wine, as she had a stressful day and wanted some wine to help her unwind.  So we both showed up, me with my British passport (about 31 I was at the time) and our marriage certificate just to make sure.  However, that wasn't enough as we were still refused service based on the grounds that I could be buying alcohol for her and she could be under-age.  I actually couldn't believe how much of a jobsworth the manger of the store was being, rigidly sticking to the rules, but then I asked her, "so you are telling me that anyone who is staying in this country that is not a resident of the EU, who might look under the age of 28 (the rule for asking for ID), cannot purchase any alcohol at Coop stores?"  The answer came back as yes.  Stunned, I just starred at the woman, said "You must be joking" and left without the wine.  My wife was furious.

Another example involving my wife recently came up in Australia.  In Australia, one must complete a course to be a carer - a popular job for immigrants and international students in Australia due to a high demand for positions - which lasts 2-6 weeks depending on when you can attend training.  After this, one must then complete a 120 hours unpaid work placement.  I already find this a considerable cheek to ask people to work this number of hours unpaid in our economically difficult day and age, but to make matters worse is the inflexibility of their demands and the lack of information they give to foreign students prior to starting these courses.  I called the training provider myself and I was amazed about how secretive they were about the details of the course, even when my wife talked to them in person they seemed to reveal little extra annoyances only after money had been handed-over.

To summarise things then, my wife had to work the 120 hours without pay, despite the fact she worked in England for 11 months as a carer when she lived there with me and despite the fact she was a fully-qualified nurse in Korea.  She also had to work these hours - inflexibly - on 5 days a week (not at weekends) and in the morning and early afternoon.  So at what time do you think most students study?  While my wife is studying nursing then, she cannot complete those 120 hours (and remember, they are not paying for this).   I find myself suspecting that this is not just an unfortunate coincidence.  Also rather conveniently, the course doesn't allow many placements to be completed in the vacations from the universities, so my wife has to go to her placement on the opposite side of the city to her university.  This is madness and the motives for all this nonsense are genuinely suspect.  It works against foreign students and the lack of transparency before one actually pays for the course works against immigrants generally.  This all means it could take months to become a carer, this could drastically affect those who are on a budget and need to work.

Annecdotes these maybe, but it is an example of how needlessly stupid the rules and regulations of the West have become and how easily they can be used to discriminate against people - consciously or unconsciously or even by accident - by virtue of being over-complicated and burdened by bureacracy. 

Moments of Clarity

I suspect many immigrants, to the UK especially, know to avoid the guaranteed time and place where people can be relied upon to be honest with them about just how they feel about their presence in the country; in the UK at least, it is the High Street of any town and city on a Friday and Saturday night.  I have written before about how Mr Hyde tends to show his face on the issue of prejudice when drinking gets involved.  During the day Dr Jekyll walks around showing-off his principles of equality, human rights and fairness, then after a few beers this often goes out the window.  Of course not everyone behaves in this way, but I can tell you from experience that a significant few always do, so reliably so that you can almost set your watch to the time that they will start, based on the average time it takes to become successfully inebriated enough to laugh-off all those equality principles as nonsense.

Media Madness Shows-up General Ignorance

This famous gaff, in a country with a huge Far-East Asian population showed-up just how ignorant many are of the people from different cultures living inside their own country.  One of the big reasons why multi-culturalism is not working is that we are not all together, we are not one people all under than same roof in the same country; we are a selection of islands within the same country where a large number of people never interact, have no knowledge of each other and yet when asked whether they support the principle of living in a multi-cultural society, simply say, "yes, of course, why wouldn't I?", despite the fact they have no idea who they are living alongside.  Perhaps one should find out before giving it one's full endorsement and especially if they then criticise those fiercely who voice opposition against the idea.


In summary then, this is not a pro-immigration post.  I actually don't think unrestricted, or even high levels of immigration at this point in time is at all a good idea (although I would love for there to be a time when we could live in a world without borders).  Why?  Because no one is ready for it.  Even among those who profess to be open-minded about other cultures and in favour of multi-culturalism, most seem to have no idea about how to truly see people of other races and cultures as equals.  The buzz word of the moment in the UK is "tolerance", we should all tolerate each other (I can't believe people don't see how bad this sounds).  Well, this misses the point entirely, tolerance is just a way of saying, put up with stuff we don't like or even hate without any understanding, a recipe for disaster as far as I can see.

Korea has a more open lack of confidence and worries about becoming a country that accepts people of different cultures and races.  Many of us foreigners living in Korea often become upset down to the laws, media reporting, and general behaviours that result because of this, but at least they are being honest about it.  Korea has a general feeling of distrust, fear, and a lack of understanding of things non-Korean and they wear it on their sleeve.  There is at least something admirable about this compared to cultures that believe the same things yet hide it away under a coat of "tolerance", odd behaviour, and laws, rules and regulations that are not followed for all or are simply too bureaucratic for non-natives to figure out.

Until tolerance is replaced by understanding in the West, multi-culturalism will not work, it will go on creating problem after problem and the hypocrisy of Western prejudice shows we have a long way to go to get to grips with people from other cultures and races.  We are not nearly as morally superior to countries like Korea as we would like to think we are in this department and we still have plenty of work to do.  Owning-up to our ignorance and being honest with ourselves and others is the first step on a long road ahead.

Noah the Jindo Dog and the In-Laws Dilemma

Noah at 7 weeks old

To have a little break from the controversy of the last couple of weeks on this blog, I thought I'd write a nice warm-hearted post and one for everyone to go "awwww" at.  If you don't find the picture of Noah the Jindo dog as a puppy on the right adorably cute, I swear you are not human.

So, in case any of you didn't know I am now lonely and pathetic in Korea (as one of the English teachers at my school always says to me in jest).  The wife has gone to study in Australia and I have to wait a number of months until I follow her there because I need to finish my contract and save money here.  I am cooking bundegi fried rice, growing a beard, drinking only water, and not eating out at all in a bid to save for Australia.  Pretty soon the beard will be trampish enough for me to become a successful beggar in the evening after my school day is finished.  Combined with the pitiful condition of my watch that I bring to class, I think some of my students are thinking about making donations already.

Anyway, a few days before my wife left, my father in-law was given a Jindo dog by his friend.  He couldn't really take care of it for a couple of days so he left him with my wife and I.  I have an extremely soft spot for dogs, I think they are marvellous animals and so with this in mind 2 days was all it took for me to fall in love with the little rascal.  We named him Noah because it is a Western name that is easy for Koreans to say and it had rained all day the day we got him, which caused some minor flooding.

My parents also happened to still be in Korea at the time after my wedding and when the day came to give the dog back to my wife's parents, we all went to their house for dinner (which is in the countryside).

I would be lying to you if I was confident in my in-laws ability to care for the dog properly and this was not solely based on how they were with him that night, but what I have seen from other Koreans when it comes to "caring" for dogs.  Culturally, any dog bigger than a new born baby tends to be left outside in all weather on a chain and doesn't get out very much and this was my worry for Noah.

The way they treated him that night was also a concern.  He was still very small and vulnerable, but starting to get a little more confident and explored around later in the evening.  Unfortunately, my in-laws had got into the habit of feeding a feral cat in their yard, which meant it tended to hang around quite a lot.  The cat in question also had a kitten that it was obviously very protective over.  When Noah came within 3 or 4 metres of the cat, it gave him a discouraging growl, but my in-laws didn't seem too worried and just ate.  I was constantly out of my seat.  I am pretty confident he would have been mauled that night had I not been there.

My father in-law also didn't appear to be too keen on having the dog, although my wife assured me that he liked the dog but had a funny way of showing it and wasn't especially open with his emotions.  Firstly, before I met the dog my wife and her father had taken him to the vets for the first of his injections.  Upon hearing this first trip would cost 70 000 won ($70) he was extremely unhappy and my wife ended up paying instead (for his dog).  She relayed to me that he said something along the lines of, "70 000, That's more than it costs for a person to see the doctor!" 

This did not convince me that he was too dedicated to the dog's well-being and made me wonder what he would do if the dog required more serious and expensive medical attention at some point in his life.  He was also fairly clumsy and callous with the dog, some examples included; he would spray his face with a compressor, wave a lighter around in his face, and grab his head and forcefully push it onto a roll of toilet paper like it was a pillow (causing the dog to squeal in pain when he was still only 7-8 weeks old).  He then also spent the entire first night saying that I could take care of him if I wanted to.  With my mum egging me on to do it and their general behaviour and lack of any preparation at all for having him, I reluctantly agreed.

I knew the situation was less than ideal to say the least.  I was on my own, living in an apartment, and I had to be at work all day and still try and fit in the exercise I do everyday.  Jindo dogs also grow to be about 20 kg or more, which is fairly big.  This was going to be a problem.

Actually, some of my fears were settled a little by Noah's behaviour.  He was extremely quiet and still is.  He would moan and cry a bit, but rarely barked and he was fine being left alone.  He also seemed naturally house-trained.  Extraordinarily, he never made one mistake while living in my apartment, I didn't have to train him for that at all.

I looked up the breed characteristics and this behaviour was confirmed; that they are highly intelligent, naturally house-trained, loyal, curiously hate water, and don't really bark unless something is really wrong (why they are valued as a guard dog).  However, I also saw warnings that they tend to be domineering, independent, willful, and have a high prey drive.  Combined, this tended to mean that, if left alone, they would entertain themselves by destroying things.  After a while this became very true and even with me carefully placing things out of reach before I left the house, he would find a way of destroying something and became a genuine handful for one person with limited time to take care of.

Despite all of this, I still would have struggled through, however I did have another pressing concern over keeping him and that was I was going to have to take him with me to Australia next year.  This was a significant issue as my budget for everything was already tight.  After a while of searching around and getting quotes, I realised two things; it was going to be a very difficult process to get him to Australia and also a very expensive process.  The lowest quote I received was between 6000 and 7000 Australian Dollars.  Added to this was the fact that even if I did manage to get him to Australia, my wife and I would have to find accommodation appropriate and cheap enough for having a big dog, not to mention a place where we would even be allowed to have him.  The situation was impossible.  So that was that, I couldn't keep him and I should give him to my in-laws before he and I became too attached to each other.

It actually turned out that I probably would have had the dog for about a month anyway because my mother in-law spent about 3 weeks in Seoul looking after her own mother who is starting to show early signs of dementia.  My father in-law was working all day everyday (and in Korea, all day really is all day and sometimes all night too) so he could not look after the dog either.  Anyway, I had him for longer than was ideal, which made it a bit difficult to give him up and I hope hasn't made him too attached to me.

My fears about how they would take care of Noah have been slightly erased, as my mother in-law looks to be quite gentle with him.  They will move him outside, which I think is inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing.  My experience of taking care of him also taught me that he reveled in being outside more than most other dogs I have known or looked after, so I think this is not a bad thing as long as they walk him regularly, which I hint at often as something they need to do a lot.

Something really good might come from the whole thing, however, and this is the fact of the dog bringing my in-laws and I together.  Without my wife to form the connection, seeing them without her would have been weird and uncomfortable to say the least. 

Another problem I have with my in-laws when I visit them is the sheer length of time I see them for and the lack of mental stimulation in this time often makes me painfully bored.  I always liked going to their house more when I was doing a job for them, like moving rocks or shoveling sand.  Now, though, I have the dog to keep my mind occupied and this also gives me something to talk about.  I can also help them out by looking after the dog occasionally when they are away, so I am becoming useful to them as well.  It seems that this dog might be the best thing for my relationship with my in-laws, it now gives me a reason to visit them more regularly and speak to them more often.

But there is a Problem

I wrote most of this post before I learned of how the doggy was getting on at the in-laws house and I'm afraid some optimism has disappeared slightly.  It is not a lost cause, but there are significant hurdles to overcome.  The problem I see is that if we cannot overcome these obstacles, I may actually grow to dislike my in-laws just when I was starting to get along with them better.  Like I have said before, I know my in-laws are not bad people, they are really genuine and nice, and the troubles we have are down to culture, this I can understand.

Korean culture with dogs is generally something that I do abhor, but after visiting him yesterday I do understand that my mother in-law, in particular, really cares about the dog.  My mother in-law has been fantastic since my wife has left and I am confident that there is not a bad bone in this woman's body, I think she is truly amazing these days and she takes great care of me too.  This is why the cultural difference is so incredibly frustrating. I find myself becoming angry at her when I know she is doing her best with the dog, she just doesn't understand dogs in the same way.  I feel a wave of negative emotions towards her that I know are unfair (and I am sure there are situations where she feels the same about me), yet I can't stop them

I reckon mixing the culture of the average Korean and the average Westerner and putting a dog in the middle is a bit of a recipe for disaster.  Simply what my in-laws see as just normal behaviour in having a dog, I see as slightly abusive, mainly in the form of neglect.  Their solution for the troubles the dog has caused by this neglect just seems to be to neglect it so much that they will eventually break and get used to it.  I don't really see the point in having a dog if you treat them in this way.

What I see at the moment is that they wanted a dog, got one, made zero preparations for having one, taken no responsibility for caring for him, and basically have no idea at all about caring for him.  Now I hear that they are worried he will bring them bad luck when he cries.  This is because he is a dog, he is a sentient being with feelings, desires, and emotions and he desperately wants to be with people and he wants to be loved. Instead he seems to be on his own all the time with no one paying any attention to him; I think I would cry too.

But the thought processes going on in my brain and that of my in-law's brains are, I suspect, quite different. To me, I am putting myself in the place of the dog; how would I feel if...... I humanise his him in one sense, but also I try and understand the dog mind.  I know they are social animals with certain needs and because I have had a dog before, I know what they tend to enjoy and hate.  I also read-up on the Jindo breed type, so I knew the specific issues I might face.  To my in-laws he is a dog and like everything else, it has its place, and its duty.  A dog's place is to be outside, tied-up, where else would they go?  All my considerations seem to be largely irrelevant.  The thinking of my in-laws explains how they care for the dog (i.e. not caring in the sense that I think one should be taking care of a dog), but it also explains the way they care for me.

I am a son in-law, my place is part of the family - almost like blood - my mother in-law's duty is to make sure I am well looked-after, so no matter how I behave, that is exactly what she does.  This is why I can be the terrible son in-law from a Korean perspective (like a commenter in a previous post thought of me) but I am treated like a king anyway.  It doesn't matter that I don't want to be treated like a king or I don't think I deserve any of it, it happens anyway.

So what can I do with the dog?  I cannot have him, I cannot really arrange for him to stay with others; he will become too big for anyone I know in their current accommodation.  I am also quite sure that giving him away to another Korean would result in similar treatment and my in-laws do actually have the perfect place to have a dog in the countryside.  After a few suggestions on how to improve the quality of Noah's life yesterday, however, I am optimistic again that we can reach a compromise between our two culture's perspectives on raising a dog, but I guess only time will tell.  My emotions on this subject, perhaps very much like this post, go from up to down and back and forth on the whole thing.  Of all of the dilemmas and challenges that have come my way since being married into a Korean family, this counts as the greatest so far.  Let's hope we can figure it out for the little champ.

The Trouble with Stereotypes

So I posted a couple of blogs last week that created quite an interesting response.  I did ponder whether the second was necessary, especially after a friend of mine from back home told me he thought it wasn't (and he is quite a thoughtful chap).  I think, however, it was a bit of a success.  If I do regret anything, it is possbly replying to every single comment sent to me on the topic, both on my blog and on facebook, when most of the questions were just re-hashings of the same arguments that I put down in the post where I challenged people on the accusations they made.  I think this might have made me seem a bit confrontational, defensive, and arrogant (this however, always seems to be the accusation leveled at people who enjoy debating).  At the time of writing, no one has attempted to take me up on the challenge yet.

I'm sticking with the subject for a while longer because I have found it all so interesting.  I think what I will take out of the whole discussion is just how murky this world of stereotyping actually is.  Categorising something as a "stereotype" seems to be surprisingly easy and amazingly damning to its credibility in explaining anything.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that if any observation of groups of people does make its way into the category of a stereotype, it appears as though it is completely off the table for discussion for many people.

You see, we have this word "stereotype" and it covers an incredible range of opinions; some have quite a bit of truth to them, some have a little truth to them, some have no truth to them, and some are actually oppositely true.  Also, they can range from viciously insulting to amusing, or just plain benign.

Here is the definition of the word stereotype from the Oxford English Dictionary website, with an example:

"a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing:  the stereotype of the woman as the carer."

(I had originally wrote "i.e." after the first sentence but a commenter pointed out that this was not exactly correct and while I think it makes no real difference, I acknowledge it wasn't perfectly accurate.  No dishonesty was meant on my part)

Actually the example here is a good one, as most people would surely acknowledge that women to tend to play more of a caring role in society than men and are usually the main carers of children.  I guess the problem comes when we always apply this to the individuals we meet and this is where the "fixed" and "oversimplified" parts of the definition not only cause offence, but also hint at the unreliability of judging individuals you don't know by using a broad generalisation of others that share similar characteristics.

I have to admit to having a little bit of confusion as to what constitutes a stereotypical statement, which of the following would be a stereotype?

Asian men are shorter than White men.
All Asian men are shorter than White men.
Asian men tend to be shorter than White men.

In my view, at least, the top two are stereotypes and perhaps the bottom one is an observation based on a widely held belief (a stereotype) that happens to be true.  The bottom statement seems not to be fixed or oversimplified because within it is implied many exceptions to the rule.  However, I think what happens in conversation and writing quite often is that the first statement is said, when the person actually means the third and that usually this is an innocent mistake.  It is an error I am extremely guarded against making when I write this blog because I know that the consequence of making such a mistake means that a whole bunch of people will abuse me and then misconstrue the whole piece of writing as a result.  As I have discovered, that tends to happen anyway.  This makes me think - that in discussion at least - it has become a bit of an annoying and slightly dishonest debating tactic to turn other's attention to use of stereotypes to discredit the writer or speaker, instead of addressing the argument.  The really big problem is that it usually works.

When it comes to applying stereotypes in the real world with real people, I have written many times about the frustration I have felt and the general ignorance of people I have met who have applied stereotypes to my wife and I, when they see us.  Here is one example from Asiapundits.  This is why I was pretty confident that, when I was criticised for using stereotypes (or using arguments with a connection to stereotypes at least) in my post and told I should reflect on other's point of view, that I had already been there and experienced the burn of it many times.  I didn't need to reflect on their point of view because I already had there point of view.

I actually think there is no harm in using a widely held view about groups of people to explain a group's behaviour sometimes, where it is relevant.  As long as it is not fixed and oversimplified for individuals, not expressed as facts about individuals, and it is not used to mistreat or discriminate against individuals.

There are a few misconceptions about the use of stereotypes - or observations that match a stereotype - that I think many people share:

Misconception #1 - When someone states a stereotyped observation about a particular group of people, this means they think EVERY individual in that group shares the characteristic they have observed.

Misconception #2 - That for a "stereotyped" view to hold some truth, a majority of people within a group should fit to that view.

Misconception #3 - That stating a view that adheres to a known stereotype involves insulting people.

Misconception #4 - That all stereotypes are equally bad.

Misconception #5 - That only bigots and racists are tempted into stereotypical thought processes.

Misconception #6 - That stereotypes will go away as long as we don't talk about them or use them for any explanatory purposes.

Misconception #7 - That it is not OK to make light of stereotypes.

Misconception #8 - That those who are within a group vulnerable to being stereotyped need all of our special protection.

Misconception #9 - That generalising (which many consider to be stereotyping) is not valid or useful.

Let me explain some of these with some examples:

#1 - The perfect example for this is would be the widely held view that Asian men don't tend to be as tall or big as White men.  The evidence is there to back up this view, but equally important is that it is fairly obvious that anyone who says this can't possibly hold the opinion that all Asians are short.  It is impossible for anyone with a pair of eyes.  I see a dozen Korean guys a day who are taller and bigger than me.

#2 - For this one, a great example is Muslims and terrorism.  I looked into this and discovered articles, like this one, stating figures in the US, which seemed to contradict the observation (connected to the stereotype that Muslims are terrorists) that Muslims are more likely to support and commit terrorism and websites like this one, which seemed to suggest that Muslims were far more likely to be involved in terrorism than any other group (there are always more stats on the US than anywhere else).  Both, in my eyes seemed to contradict one another, so I discarded them as being rather bias viewpoints, one from the far-left and one from the far-right.  The first did make me think though, could the world really be so wrong about Islam's connection to terrorism?  I did wonder on one thing though, just what defined a terrorist incident and what about the seriousness of them?  With this in mind I looked for a list of terrorist incidents by number of deaths, and this is what I found.  To say this is shocking would be an understatement.  It seems that acts of terrorism are committed by all sorts of people, but the biggest and most lethal ones (the ones which most people associate with terrorist acts) are usually committed by people who happen to be Muslims and under the ideology of Islamism.

Note: Again the definition of terrorism can also be argued by the other side here.  A Pakistani Muslim might well argue that US drone strikes constitute terrorism, and they might have a point.  This would be a crime committed by government, however, and not by citizens and doesn't really disprove the conclusion based on the stereotype.

Even with this list in mind, one must acknowledge that it is only the tiniest percentage of people who profess to be Muslim who are actually terrorists, perhaps not even 0.00001%.  However, this minute figure doesn't matter when we ask the question, "Which group of people with a shared faith or ideology are most likely to commit a deadly terrorist act?"  Despite the tiny numbers, you would have to say those that believe in Islam, so the observation that has the connection to the stereotype is not without some truth to it.  What the numbers do show is how mind-blowingly stupid you would have to be to approach a Muslim on the street and believe they could be a terrorist, let alone shout at them accusing them of being one, or worse.  You would probably be 99.99999% likely to be entirely wrong, not good odds.  If you were to judge them as a possible terrorist, you would be an ignoramus.

#3 - To me this is one of the most bizarre of all.  It simply doesn't compute in my head to be upset with someone who holds a view based on a stereotype.  As long as they can admit of exceptions and not treat anyone differently as a result of their thinking, I can't see how this is a problem.  For example, there is a big difference between how I would perceive the following questions about my wife:

"What's your wife doing today, cooking?"

"I've heard that Asian women always spend their days cooking for their husbands, is that true for your wife?"

 Let me first say that I did receive comment one a few times in England (and a few times more if you swap "cooking" for "cleaning").  To me, the first always sounds a little snidy and like a bit of a dig (especially if I could express the tone of voice used).  The second one is still in a style that many might find offensive, and I guess it might depend on the tone of voice also, but it shouldn't be really.  There is nothing wrong with being ignorant as long as you have an open mind and are willing to be educated and I think this kind of question admits to curiosity and scepticism of the widely held view, and most importantly a recognition of the fact that my wife may well be different from the stereotype.

#4 - I have noticed that people tend to categorise all stereotypes together in a bit of an ill disciplined manner, and a kind of ironic, "if you believe in one, you would believe in them all" statement is often the result.  Believing Black people are criminals is not the same as believing White people are slow runners, for example.  If one truly believes the first and applies it to the Black people they meet, they are people who you should worry about significantly more than people who believe the second about White people.  Believing in one also doesn't constitute believing in the other.

#5 - I have had a few occasions where people have commented on my writing and either implied or simply stated that they think I am a racist or a bigot for taking a generalisation and using it to explain certain behaviours of groups, usually Koreans, but also of Westerners too.  What has always given me a good laugh is that at the same time some of these people are accusing me of over-generalising, they often throw in a comment like this:

"I have known people like you before, you are all the same"

 Here is a classic from my "Challenge" post:

"here, foremost:

"I am married into a Korean family ..."

so what.

i've met a lot of guys like you who throw this out first. it doesn't matter, but you think it does and want everyone to think it does, but it doesn't.

this attitude distorts your worldview, how you perceive yourself, your marriage, and quite possibly your wife."

This makes me inclined to think we all do this to some extent and that we have to be very guarded against it.  It seems we are all natural stereotypers as humans, indeed most animals are pattern seekers.  We make lots of mistakes of course, when searching for patterns, which is why these things need to be examined further.

Once again, you can think something about a group of people, but it shouldn't really inform your actions or your words on a particular individual within that group, much better to have a chat with them and see what they think.

#6 - The other day I noticed a post about about conservatives fearing being called racist (in the US) and so not feeling able to air their opinions and in their frustration simply tuning-in to the most radical conservative radio and TV shows (which tend to be more popular than liberal ones), understanding their point of view and becoming more radically right-wing themselves as a result. I can really imagine this is true and I think this is a sad state of affairs and although I admittedly know little about the US, I do follow its politics quite closely and what I do see is a growing polarisation of the voting public and this could be part of the reason for it. 

It seems to me that silencing any views that could be deemed racist, culturalist, or stereotypical does not have the desired effect of taking away the impulse in people.  In fact, the logic tells me that their views will go unchallenged and allowed to fester and grow into something worse.

#7 - 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.

It is common, for example, in sports teams for new members to undergo an "initiation ceremony", which is usually a practical joke at their expense.  I can remember quite a few practical jokes from my cricket team members back in England, but I heard of some truly awful initiations for rugby teams.  It is done because it is a tried and trusted way of breaking the ice and forming a bond.  A problem I see is that it has become truly taboo to even come close to doing this between races or cultures.  We all have to show we are "respecting" each other by being hyper-sensitive about almost every issue.  This hyper-sensitivity is rampant in Western discourse at the moment.  Many people seem to jump to being offended and then can't really figure-out why they are, they just are and that is enough.

If we take another observation about many Far East Asian countries (that might be deemed stereotypical), they do seem to dislike each other a little more than Western countries dislike each other.  It has always intrigued me how little good humour there is between Korea and Japan, for example.  If we take an example of a good relationship between countries, you might use the UK and the US, where very little genuine animosity exists between its citizens and where jokes about each other's culture fly about left, right, and centre and generally taken in good heart.  The current relationship between many Islamic majority countries and the West is a good example of a bad relationship and this is characterised by an almost complete inability for one side to be able to see the funny side of anything when it relates to their culture or beliefs.

With all this in mind then, I might be inclined to suggest that making fun of the groups each of us tend to naturally fit into - by birth or whatever other reason - might actually be extremely beneficial.  Many historical reasons might make this all the more complicated, but at least in principle it appears a sound idea.  As always, however, one must take care with individuals not to embarrass or single them out too much.  Judging the reaction to a good joke has always been a bit of an art form to avoid the potential to upset people too much.

#8 - Over the past year or so, I have noticed a bit of a pattern emerging on my site - and other places where this blog gets a show or where I write - that it is almost always Westerners that become most offended by what I write.  If I write something criticising Korean culture, Westerners will jump to Korea's defense and be offended on their behalf.  It is very noble, but I do see a problem with this. 

The Western voice often becomes so loud that it drowns out the voice of those actually affected by a stereotype or prejudice.  This has the effect of keeping them down, it posits them as vulnerable, weak and in need of our superior position's protection (in fact the Westerner showing offence often assumes this superiority).  In the case of the races, when White people over-defend people of different race and culture, it actually hints at disrespect rather than respect.  They can't take a joke like us, they are not as strong as us, they need help not like us, they are not as culturally evolved as us, so give them a break. 

Obviously, the vulnerable among us do need protection.  I am not sure about whether my theory here would work for minorities in Western countries (but I think protections and extra vigilance from criminal acts might be enough), but what I am fairly sure about is that in Korea, for instance, Koreans don't need Westerners standing up for them and that they are more than capable of defending themselves if they need to.  I have always respected Korean people enough to think them able to take any criticism I have of their culture and to not be so proud that they couldn't accept a knock or two and possibly work to change the behaviour of society or at least go against it. 

#9 - As I have already stated, many people get upset with any generalisation of groups of people and consider it stereotyping and therefore will say it is invalid and also not useful.  In reality, as I have also already mentioned, everyone tends to stereotype, or at least generalise, because pattern seeking behaviour helps us handle and organise the mountain of information we receive on a daily, hourly, minute, and even second to second basis.  Sometimes we will commit errors by doing this, but many times the results will help us interact with people and the world, which may help us avoid catastrophic mistakes. 


I am passionate about the value of scientific inquiry and the scientific method has come about to help us confirm or deny the patterns we see around us, but to get started one must posit a theory first and this involves speculation and asking many questions about what is going on in order to form a hypothesis to be tested.  This is how we find out what is true.  If it is wrong to speculate and wrong to ask certain questions, we will never discover the truth and, if I had to choose, I would take the truth over reducing offence by avoiding honest speculation any day.

A Challenge: RE My Asian/White Couples Post

My last post on Asian/White couples seemed to offend a few people, so in a bid to understand why, I am issuing a challenge to any readers of this blog, not because I really believe my position is infallible, but because I do want to genuinely know if the offence I have caused is justified.  If you can fulfill any of the following, I will issue a public apology for what I wrote on this blog:

Pull a quote from that post and copy it into my comment section below on this post and explain how it shows any of the following accusations leveled against me - all of which can be found in the comments section of my last post - are accurate:

a) That the post was a direct response to TheKoreans article on the subject in America, and that I talked with authority about the situation in America.  Please bear in mind that I wrote this:

"This post will not be a direct response as such because I do not live and have never lived in America and I don't know what it is like there, but some of the things I bring up here will at least have some relevance to the subject." 

"My expertise is with Korea, so I am going to look at the question from the point of view of living in Korea."

b) That I wrote that Asian men are not attractive to women.  And I will make this one even easier for you; you don't need to find anything that says I thought all Asian men are unattractive to women, just some.

c) That I personally think White men are more attractive than Asian men.

d) That I think ALL Korean women prefer White men.  And again I will make this easy for you, find the part where I said more Korean women prefer White men over Korean men. 

e) That I do not think that unjustified racism, stereotyping, Western media favouritism to caucasians, etc, plays a significant role in the issue.  You will have to explain away the following quotes from the post:

On TheKorean's conclusion: "deep-seated racism and cultural stereotyping which consciously and unconsciously affects people's choices. Actually, I agree that this could be a considerable factor"

"Let me first acknowledge, however, that it probably is true that society puts the white man on top of the social status pyramid and because status is a major influence on a woman's taste in a man, this is of course a big element to the whole thing"

"With this in mind then there is most probably an effect on the mind of Asian women by society, stereotypes and racism even when it comes to Asian men, I am certainly not denying it."

"So while a form of racism and stereotyping exists that harms an Asian man's chances of bagging a White Western woman, this is certainly not the whole story"

f) That I spoke for mixed race couples and silenced them in the process.  I never suggested I knew anything more than a few POSSIBLE problems for a mixed Asian man and Western woman couples that were perhaps not faced by a White man Asian woman couples, like my wife and I.  I never spoke for anyone else and admitted the existence many exceptions.  Another quote to prove this:

 "This seems a little bit more of a problematic relationship and despite the fact there are many success stories, here are some of the problems I foresee for such couples, which are not insurmountable, but definitely make things more difficult"

I am not sure how this involves silencing their views, as was claimed in my comments section. Also see this link on the disparity of divorce rates in Asian/White relationships, from which I pull this quote:

"White wife/Asian husband couples are 59% more likely to divorce by the 10th year of marriage than White wife/White husband couples, whereas Asian wife/White husband couples show only 4% greater likelihood of divorce than White wife/White husband couples over the same period.^[9] Social enterprise research by the Columbia Business School (2005–2007) concluded that while East Asian women statistically prefer East Asian men for marriage, they show no discrimination against White men, causing Asian women/White men pairings to consistently become the prevalent form of interracial dating & marriage in the United States.^[6]"

g) Point to where I implied White women couldn't possibly be interested in Asian men.

h) Point to where I implied that it was strange for a White woman to be interested in an Asian man.

i) Point to where I wrote all women don't like short men or that all women like big/tall men.

j) Point to where I wrote Asian men were less "manly".  I merely wrote that they TEND to be not as big, and again not all of them (this is a fact).

k) Point to where I implied my wife's discussion with her Japanese friend on the subject was the opinion of all Asian women.

l) Point to where I said all Asian women were smaller, slimmer, or more feminine than White women.  I said "arguably" they tend to be, which may be wrong, but I am entitled to my opinion.


As you can see there are a number of accusations I feel are completely unjustified and that I simply didn't write.  Some of them are so laughably misconstrued as to make me wonder what they were actually reading and makes me think that this was an important subject to write about.

In attempt to educate me, Roboseyo posted a number of links which included 4 posts (start here) from the blog "I'm no Picasso" on the effect stereotypes and racism have on Western women with Korean men in Korea, especially relevant to when they are in a Western crowd of people.  I read them all (obviously not quickly enough for the blogger in question), but I already knew what they were going to say and I knew that I would agree whole-heartedly.

If she or Roboseyo think I don't understand the general ignorance, prejudice, and unbelievable stupidity of many Westerners when it comes to their behaviour around an Asian/White couple, they are severely wrong because boy did I receive enough of it in England when I lived there with my wife, which I have written about several times on this blog.  And this leads me to my last challenge, and by far the most important one, because even if I did believe what I am accused to believe in (which I don't, let's just clarify that again) they would make me nothing more than a little ignorant perhaps, but not a monster nor especially immoral.  This is what really matters:

m) Point to the part of the post where I wrote that we should discriminate against couples we meet, treat them differently at all, or judge them upon anything other than their own individual character. Point to where I said we should ridicule their choices or assume anything about their relationship.

Just because I believe that patterns of behaviour and appearance do exist in different populations of people, and this can have some explanatory power sometimes, I would never say that means we can judge individuals on this.  This is a distinction worth noting.  Upon seeing any couple, whether they are inter-racial or not, I would advocate assuming nothing more than they like each other and treating them like any other couple you happen to lay your eyes on or interact with.  Why would I condone anything else, considering I myself am in an inter-racial relationship and my wife and I have been the victim of people's prejudices?

It is worth restating the aim of my post and that was to say that the issue of why there are more Asian women with White men than White women with Asian men is more complicated than mere prejudice (and Western prejudice at that, which appears to be the sole explanation for all matters inter-racial these days) and the language I used in the post clearly points to a speculative approach, considering all the possibilities.  It was never intended to be a direct response to the situation in America, just a perspective from Korea, as I explicitly stated.

It appears as if merely exploring other possibilities, and denying prejudice is the sole cause, is offensive in itself.  The ironic thing is that my post may have exposed a different kind of stereotype, a new one, where relations between races can only be explained by Western culture's prejudices, which is then taboo to criticise (I believe this is a very popular line of thought at the moment).  And once again, I think much of it can be, but not everything and I think one has the responsibility to point this out and most of all be honest and have an open mind to other explanations until they are proven to be wrong.

If you see everything as a sign of prejudice, how can you be without prejudice yourself?

And Finally

As speculative as my post was a regular commenter on my blog pointed out in my comments section that there is indeed quite a lot of compelling evidence for many of my speculations.  I thank him for his intellectual rigour in the search for truth and teaching me a lesson in searching for more supporting evidence, even when I am just throwing out ideas.  I am linking a couple of his sources, that he used in his excellent explanation below (please see my comment section on my last post for his full comment):

http://www.targetmap.com/ThumbnailsReports/5744_THUMB_IPAD.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_United_States#Asian_and_White
http://thethreewisemonkeys.com/2012/06/26/who-do-you-love-korean-ethnocentrism-international-couples-and-the-dating-dilemma/
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/02/17/james-taranto-takes-on-hypergamy/

And just to show , once more, that I do believe stereotypes and media representation of races is a key factor, here is a little nugget to show that too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_capital#Race