Tag: KOREA

A Side Order of Context

gordsellar6 Comments

  Something I find fascinating is how people talk and talk and talk about diversity as if it only means different races, and not different cultures–that different cultures and the frame of reference in which they operate ought to be transparent to anyone without the slightest bit of effort or context. For example, the above image has apparently started doing the rounds on Facebook… at least, I assume so. I’m not tracking the trends, but a friend shared it. Is it racism captured in a nutshell? I don’t think so… but I’m guessing a lot of Westerners would. Don’t get me wrong. I’m …

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Not Even A Mention?

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KoreaBANG put a heartbreaking news report up about a month ago. I wrote about it then, but never got around to posting it. The report was titled Horrifying Murder of Gimhae Teen Leaves Koreans in Shock – koreaBANG. I’ll try spare you the goriest of the details–they’re very gory, but some of them are necessary to include, to talk about the case–but the basic story is that a teenaged girl was essentially abducted, forced into sex slavery, then returned to her father, then abducted again, brutally tortured to death, and then her corpse was burned and concealed beneath concrete by her killers so her family …

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Bev, Gandhi, and Chinese Drivers

gordsellar2 Comments

The other day, I posted this video on Facebook: The responses on Facebook were interesting: Note that it was in the second response that the discussion suddenly focused on stupid things Koreans say to white people, like, “Wow, you can use chopsticks!” or “Please marry someone from your own country.” The second comment. It’s interesting because, as outsiders in a culture, people often tend to try fit their experiences into an understanding of that culture. Which, you know, is skewed by the fact that people tend to remember most clearly, the most offensive and idiotic exchanges they’ve experienced.1 In other …

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Riots in Bình Dương

gordsellar3 Comments

So, I don’t know if it’s hit your radar if you’re living outside the country, but Vietnam’s been having some pretty serious civil unrest the last couple of days: in an industrial area called Bin Duong Bình Dương , rather near to Saigon, factories were attacked, looted, and set on fire. The international news coverage seems to have caught on in the last 24 hours, and I see in the articles a lot of attempts to clarify what triggered this outburst: Thousands of workers rampaged through an industrial area in southern Vietnam on Tuesday in what reportedly began as protests against China’s …

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Flashback!

gordsellar2 Comments

I’ve been busy for a while now, sorting through things, getting writing done, and so on. I’ve wanted to post about the Sewol Ferry Disaster for a while, but finding an appropriate way of saying what I think about this horrifying and heartbreaking situation is hard work, and I’ve been busy with other very pressing things, including sorting through my “piles of crap.” Those “piles” are digital, mind you: hard drives of accumulated photos, files, and so on. (And that’s besides my writing, and work on the Daerijeon soundtrack, and getting some exercise, and so on). But I didn’t want …

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