Caveat: Things Koreans believe about immigration

Since I teach debate, I sometimes have the situation where students express views or even “facts” with which I don’t agree or which I dislike. Only with the most advanced students have I ever tried to go into the realm of evidentiality and “sourced” arguments – mostly I focus on using debate as a means of expressing opinions using English and without regard to the veracity or even acceptability of what they’re saying. Also, since I often make students “switch sides,” I can hardly complain if they end up coming up with some implausible argument for a position which they wouldn’t have chosen in any event on their own.
The below, however, is not one of those cases – the student chose the position apparently sincerely, and furthermore, I can sadly say that the opinions he echoes are quite widely held. Most interesting, vis-a-vis the question of immigration to Korea, is the seemingly circular argument that foreigners should not come to Korea because, since Koreans are racists and nationalists, immigrants would therefore have a bad experience here. It boils down to: “Don’t come here because we don’t like you, and so it would be bad for you to come here.”
Still, perhaps the most bizarre are the beliefs about how dangerous foreigners are. Yet this kind of thinking is hardly unique to Korea – just look at the American discourse around immigration, and such views are easy to find.

There are many people who are coming from other country these days. Korea can develop by accepting these kinds of people, but there are many people in different opinion that disagree about accepting these kinds of people.

People who are coming from another country have different religions. IS which is one of the most dangerous groups of people in the world have the Islamic religion. They are very dangerous, so most people do not like to live in the same country with them. Korean people often eat fork after work, but Islamic people can not eat pork. Hindu people can not eat beef, so they can not join in the Korean company dinner. Many people who are coming from other countries can not live with Korean people.

There is the wall between Korean people and foreigners. This wall is called nationalism. Korean people express a very powerful nationalism. For example, Korean people do not like black people because they think that black people make scary situation. Korean people are also disregard immigrant workers who are coming from Philippines or Vietnam. Immigration is harmful for foreigners.

Foreigners make crimes. American soldiers make crimes almost once a week. They kill many Korean women and rape them. Chinese are psycho. Chinese kill Korean people, cut into their bodies and also they eat human meat. Foreigners are dangerous to live with.

In conclusion, immigration is sometimes helpful but not always. Foreigners have different religion and make many crimes. Korean people also have nationalism, so foreigners can not endure it. People should know that immigration is not always good for our country.

I can say that among my students, such views as these are not that common – just by virtue of being a middle-school student who is in the top quartile of English ability (such as is the case with my students, since I don’t teach the lower levels) means that one’s views of things like globalism and internationalism are probably moderate. Nevertheless, in the broader public, I can also say that such views are probably more common than anyone would like to admit.

“While the secret knowledge is only available to some members of the society, there is an ideology, an ethics, and a phenomenology of ignorance that is shared, to some degree, by all.” -Jonathan Mair

[daily log: walking, 6km]

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