Korean Women and Western/White Men: a Complicated and Troubled Relationship

       

This is a follow-up to my previous post about the heavily gendered imbalance of power within Korean society. Check that out for more of the backstory on the world that Korean women live in.

After a few months of living in Korea I realized that there was a stock set of questions that many people would ask me. Introductions usually involved questions about my nationality, hometown, marital status, age, religion, college major, etc. Other than the “Why aren’t you married yet?” questions, that all seemed like pretty much what I expected.

And sometimes people would also ask, with a sly grin, what I thought about Korean girls. I’m a white American guy, so the general assumption in Korea is that I must be insanely drawn to Korean women. Several middle-aged Korean businessmen even went so far as to loudly and proudly proclaim their belief that Korean women are the most beautiful in the world, and then turned to me to ask me if I did not agree. They seemed to really want some validation, of some kind. This line of questions made me deeply uncomfortable. I told them that I think there are beautiful women everywhere in the world, which is true.

I thought that the idea that women, as people, can be divided up and ranked by nationalities was pretty twisted, but I heard this more than a few times. That whole situation also kind of falls into the whole Korean illogical nationalism meme. Koreans are intensely proud of anything Korean, and love to expound upon this ardent belief. I did find it surprising, however, that this included a male Korean pride in the beauty of Korean women. I can’t imagine telling anyone that I think American girls are somehow “better” than women from anywhere else…

The whole scenario also made me uncomfortable because I didn’t like being stereotyped as another yellow-fever skirt-chasing white guy living recklessly and hedonistically in Korea. Xenophobic Korean political groups like Anti-English Spectrum love to publicize propaganda about how white men come here to corrupt and take advantage of Korean women, and how “90% of the white men in Korea are villainous human garbage.”

There is a long tradition of Koreans being embarrassed and upset about relationships between Korean women and Western men. This goes back to painful memories of the Korean War. In the 1950’s the country was destroyed and many people were starving. Some Korean women sold themselves to American soldiers as a way to survive. The stigma of that commonly seen spectacle has only recently begun to lift in Korean culture, and still many older Koreans get upset when they see Korean girls with Western guys. I have a Vietnamese-American friend who lives in Seoul, and many people assume that she is Korean, because she looks Asian. When we go places together I find myself met by hostile stares on the subway, walking down the street, and when we go into shops. Despite the fact that we speak only English together, and that she sounds quite American, us just spending time together makes people really angry. And we are just friends; it’s not like we make out on the sidewalk. Nevertheless, Korean people really think that I am another “bad” foreigner here to help myself to Korean women. And they are pissed.

It is true that there are lots of young Western guys in Korea that are interested in Korean women. And there is nothing wrong with that, in general. Love often blossoms across national, cultural, and racial lines, and that in of itself is a beautiful thing. It is expected and healthy to come to a foreign culture with a curiosity about its people, and part of that curiosity might be an interest in dating someone from another culture. Personally, I’m a white American guy, and my girlfriend is ethnically South Asian, with parents from Pakistan. (She’s Canadian.) I am a big believer in multiculturalism, and getting to know people outside of your own group. The world would be a better place if we all tried to learn more about each other. And, as an American, I firmly believe that the diversity of my country is among its greatest cultural assets. Learning about other cultures, and meeting people who don’t look like you is profoundly enriching.

But what has always troubled me here  is the shallowness of lots of the relationships that I see going on between Western men and Korean women. There is also a really troubling imbalance of power going on – one that Western guys, quite frankly, take advantage of too often.

Now this is a broad generalization, and so is dangerous. Obviously not everyone is like this, but I am writing about what I see every day, and this is a big part of expat life in South Korea.

If you come to Korea as a white Western man, you bring with you various forms of social, cultural, economic, and political power. First of all, you speak English fluently – which is an obsessively sought-after status symbol in Korea. Koreans would kill for your English, because if they could speak English like you they could have everything they want in life. That in of itself is incredibly intimidating to many people. Also, you bring with you all the power of whiteness. This power is so vast, and complicated, and operates in such pervasive and subtle ways that it is almost hard to describe. White people grow up knowing that people who look and sound and live like them run the world. Our culture is incredibly dominant. Companies and governments and organizations that were built and are run by white people control most of the money and power in the world. Whiteness is also almost always the standard of beauty in almost all cultures. Millions of people around the world put damaging creams on their skin, and poisonous chemicals on their hair, because they are desperate to appear more European-looking. And chances are, if you’re a Westerner your country has a lot more power and respect in the world than South Korea. This is especially true for Americans. Basically you come from the most powerful group in the most powerful society in the entire world. Your presence is inherently commanding and connected to lots of viscerally powerful things in the global political economy, whether you realize it or not.

And if you are a white Western guy in Korea that wants to date Korean women, then you are going after the most stepped on group in society in a very oppressive culture, in a country that has not much power in the world. There is a HUGE imbalance of power there.

Of course Korean women have some say-so in who they want to date. Lots of Korean women want to date a foreign guy. They see Westerners as having a lot of things they want in life: good English, knowledge about the West, possibly more money, a culture that allows them a lot more freedom. And it also helps that they have been watching movies and TV shows and looking at magazines their whole lives that are filled with good-looking Western celebrities. It’s exciting for Asian people to meet white people sometimes, simply because they are used to only seeing us on TV. When Americans go to China people take their pictures at bus stops, because they are such a curiosity. Many young Korean people also wish they could be more like us, because we seem to have a lot more freedom and happiness in life. Plus they feel insecure about their bodies, and wish they looked more like us. Witness the vast industry in double-eyelid plastic surgery and other painful attempts to create white-looking features on Asian bodies.

Westerners, especially Americans, are raised to be confident and to speak boldly about their opinions and their desires in life. Korean women, on the other hand, are traditionally raised to be demure, polite, submissive, obedient, and respectful. Of course, I know Korean women – some of the best friends I have made here – that are very independent and outspoken. But they are bucking the trend, and refusing to submit to a traditional Korean marriage. And they are hated on and judged by lots of people. They also probably have huge fights with their families about not living an “acceptable” life.

Lots of things come out of all this. For one thing, mediocre-looking, or downright fugly white guys – most of whom work in sub-professional English teaching jobs - are able to come to Korea and date women who are attractive, successful, and way out of their league. This is a legit phenomenon, and one that every Westerner living in Korea has observed firsthand. So many Western guys come here and really wanna date Korean women that the expat ladies have a really hard time dating. Some of them get really depressed about it, and compare themselves to super-thin impeccably-dressed Korean chicks that they couldn’t possibly look like. I have a few close female American friends that are having a terrible time meeting guys, because so many of them are off trying to date a million Korean girls.

But to me what is most profound and disturbing about the whole Korean-girls-Western-dudes thing is the power imbalance. The white guys just have SO much power, and they enjoy it way too much. It seems like they get way too much of whatever they want. They gloat it in. They are fawned over, and sought after, and they feel like gods here. I know a Canadian guy whose relationships back home in Toronto were all disasters, and who was too insecure to get laid. But in Korea he is dating an attractive marketing professional, and has hooked up with tons of willing Korean chicks, and now he never wants to go home – where he would just be another average guy. That is really sad to me, because all these relationships are pretty shallow. With the language/culture barrier in place, I just see him having a bunch of physical encounters that don't seem to mean much. 

Many Westerners in Korea have also watched their foreign male friends date Korean women, and get away with crazy shit that no woman would put up with back in their own countries. Right now I know a Canadian guy who has been married to a really nice Korean woman for a few years. And he treats her like total shit. He insults her, and embarrasses her, and condescends to her constantly. Basically he is just a really insecure dude, and I think he enjoys feeling superior to his wife way too much. He talks shit to her about Korea, jokes about how white people run the world, lords his mastery of English over her, and totally dominates their home. (Note that English is his first and only language, while his Korean wife speaks three.) Now that is some deep racial shit, as well as being bound up in the tortured manifestations of gender and international political inequality.

And simply put, this is what has always bothered me about a lot of the white guys in Korea. I have watched really lame guys come here, guys I would never wanna hang out with, and basically take their pick of women. Many Koreans assume that Korean girls are only using them for free English lessons, and maybe some are. But it really turns my stomach to see these insecure, lame, emotionally messed up dudes, capitalizing on, exploiting their status as white Western men. Plus lots of them are just assholes to their girlfriends and wives, who are generally better-looking and often smarter than them. After all, their relationships take place almost exclusively within the bounds of the English language. To be completely honest, ever since I came to Korea I have had a hard time making male friends. Lots of the guys here just rub me the wrong way, or seem dull, or seem arrogant, or are insecure and jealous. They seem to be here for all the wrong reasons.

So what is it that attracts insecure emotionally troubled white men to Korea? The answer to that question lies in the ways that Westerners often view Asian people, Asian cultures, and Asian bodies. Asian chicks are fawned over in the West because they are thin, cute, and assumed to be submissive.

I never wanted to date submissive women, because I like hanging out with funny confident chicks that have interesting opinions, so this psychology is really alien to me. But generally, it seems to me that lots of Western guys who are deeply insecure about their masculinity seek out relationships with Korean women because they want a woman who they think will be weak and passive. I see lots of Western guys here bullying, dominating, insulting, and generally treating Korean girlfriends in really shitty ways emotionally. But because of the language barrier, and because Koreans are not taught to speak up for themselves – girls especially, most of the time they don’t get called out for being shitty boyfriends.

I have to say, watching this shit go down really turns my stomach. It’s also embarrassing to me. Because I am a white guy, and I look like these douchebags, and I am tired of being assumed to be one of them. 

I also feel sorry for Korean women who wanna date outside their culture, and who may not know what they are getting into when they start dating a controlling and insecure white guy. Our cultures are so different that Koreans have a hard time understanding Western people’s personalities sometimes. Plus, Korean women are being chased by all these weirdos that want them to be symbols of passivity, rather than real people. As so often sadly happens to Asian American women in the West, I fear that many of them get into relationships with men that fetishize and abuse them. And that is just inhuman.

I never came to Korea to look for a submissive wife, or to chase Asian girls, or relive my adolescence, or exploit the power of whiteness. I just wanted to live overseas, meet new kinds of people, learn about the world, and teach English, and have a decent job. But these guys make me look like shit. And no one calls them out on it.

I gotta say it white dudes in Korea - it is really time to step it up.