Wednesday, July 4th
I was scheduled to work the AM shift but that was irrelevant for the most part because of the national day ceremony. Everyone had to come in at about 9 am to help out, but we ended up for the most part sitting around since everything had already been taken care of. The ceremony began at 11 am with speeches by, the director of NOAA, U.S. Ambassador to Korea Sung Kim, and Philippe Cousteau, Jr. Then there was a performance by the Krokodiloes, Harvard's oldest a cappella singing group, and a U.S. military marching band from Seoul. I have to admit the performances were a lot more enjoyable than I thought they would be and I was surprised by the fact I'd recognized the tunes by the marching band. On the other hand, I didn't recognize any of the songs by the Krokodiloes, except for the Korean one they sang since it's like the most famous Korean song ever. After that we had about twenty minutes for lunch and then my shift had work from 1 to 5 pm. As we were leaving from work, we saw one of our retail managers drumming with the Filipino drummers and DJ as part of the US-Philippines Friendship Day. So we went over and cheered him on and then we decided to start a dance party. After about a half hour and the dance party in full gear we went back to the apartments to change.
While waiting for George to finish getting ready, I called Singles House (the place I wanted to live) to ask if they had a room available. I was really nervous because I hate talking in Korean over the phone because it's way more difficult and confusing. But I finally called them and told the guy who answered that I had seen the room the weekend before and was now interested in reserving a room. After a minute the guy asked me in English if I was foreigner and, when I said yes, said he would call me back in a couple minutes. I assumed then he was going to see if he could find an English speaker to talk with me. When the phone rang, I picked it up and a middle-aged man was on the line, who I assumed must have been the previous guy's boss. He asked if I was the foreigner who had just called and when I confirmed, he told me having a foreigner live in their place would be inconvenient for them. Even though I couldn't understand 100% of what he said, he was clearly telling me he had no interest in letting a foreigner live there. I was so shocked all I could say was "yes...yes... I understand" and then hung up. I was just so shocked because it made no sense to me. He was clearly being xenophobic or racist because it's not like there was a big enough language barrier for it to be a problem if I lived there. I was so close to crying, but luckily I had made the call while with Rachel and when she found out what he said, she got mad for me. She was really tempted to call him back, but I didn't think it was worth it. There wasn't anything to be said. I wish that I had gotten angry with him instead of just taking it, but since the call was already over I didn't think anything good would come out of calling the guy back. I was just totally blindsided by it. For about a half hour I went from anger to almost crying repeatedly and quickly. Luckily, Rachel and George were with me and helped me process everything. By the time we got downtown, I decided to just forget it about and come to terms later instead of being an emotional wreck while eating. After dinner, we briefly went to an arcade and then to Caffe Ti Amo for some ice cream therapy. That night, since I no longer had a place I was interested in staying at, I did more housing research with Rachel.
What really got me so upset about this episode was that the man (I assume he was the manager of Singles House) was unable to see me as anything but a foreigner. In Korea, I obviously stick out as a foreigner because the nation is so homogeneous. This is in contrast with the United States, where no one can tell who's a foreigner simply by looking at someone. I'm not saying our country is necessarily the most diverse place ever, but at the very least everyone retains a bit of anonymity there. People may come to the conclusion that you must be an immigrant or foreigner if they hear you using a language besides English, and there are plenty of people who are ethnocentric/racist/otherwise bigoted. However, the difference is how Koreans and Americans view identity. In Korea you are Korean if and only if you are ethnically Korean. If you have Korean citizenship, but don't look Korean, then you're not Korean. The Korean identity is ethnically based while I would argue that American identity is more citizenship based (or even simply that you live in the United States). Anyone (for the most part) thus can be American if they choose. You can only be Korean by birth. As I am obviously not Korean nor from any other Asian country, there are people (especially children or creepy men) that stare at me. The staring can be annoying at times, but for the most part it doesn't bother men. (The exception being when it's the creepy men.) I don't even get phased by complete strangers randomly yelling English at me because it's simply not worth getting annoyed over. These are more of the benign manifestations of the inability for some Koreans to see people only as foreigners. To them we lack any other defining feature besides our foreignness. However, this perspective took a turn for the more serious when that man refused to give me housing. He was unable to see me as a person. To him I was simply a foreigner. I don't know what preconceptions he holds about foreigners, but they're obviously not positive and he projected all of those stereotypes onto me. By denying me housing, he in one blow made my weeks of housing searching and trips to Seoul pretty much useless. He made me even more stressed because I had to start my housing search over again. Even more, he just showed complete disrespect for me as a person. All of this I was completely unprepared for and that is why I got so emotional. Now that it's been a couple weeks, I sincerely do regret not pushing him to justify his prejudices towards foreigners, but at the same time, I am glad I'm not living there because I don't want a bigot as a landlord. I'm glad that I learned he was prejudiced against foreigners before living there because otherwise I would have had a miserable time there I'm sure. The experience I think will definitely help me get thicker skin for when this happens again because I have no doubt that I will encounter more xenophobia or racism. I think it's pretty much unavoidable in any country.
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