@expatjane you seem to be defending yourself for things which you don’t need to be defensive. sounds like Ed asked you why you think the show was crap. personally I didn’t see anything in that where he judged your opinion. also this is just me but it seems like if you know the history it should come out in the substance of your posts, not just you talking about the education you had. I found the perspective he had on Ward and why Koreans enjoy the show interesting. only a sad person would begrudge people their simple pleasures.

isn’t that girl bianca mobley half-korean too?

Talk about being a minority in the U.S. Large number of Koreans go back to Korea since the economy in Korea (Korea, Japan, China) is doing much better than the U.S. and Western countries. I saw large number of white Americans are emigrating to Korea to find jobs. (not to teach English but to work at major Korean companies). I hope this relationship between East and West would have a profound impact on working together to make this world a better, peaceful place to live.

I think the show is crap because it’s lightweight. I lived in Korea for quite a long time and even before I arrived I knew its history. After two years at Ewha, I came away knowing much more and, hopefully, have a nuanced view of South Korean history (at least from the Korean War onward.) Thank you very much for the history lesson, but it’s not necessary.

Funny how you’ve injected your own biases into my opinion without even knowing why I thought the show is not worth my time. It’s a lightweight show which is superficial at best. That’s not uncommon for TV and it’s the exact reason why I don’t like most TV shows.

As for Hines Ward. Great, but again the fact remains that his mother had to read Koreans the riot act regarding race. Only then did they respond and to make some forms of racism illegal. Again, you’re so quick to lecture me that the sin you’ve accused me of, injecting my prejudice and hangups into an issue, that you end up making the same error.

BTW, I think it’s great his mom sacrificed. However, you know what? Most good moms do sacrifice for their children. Mine did too.

As for Hines. You seem to ignore the fact that he’s accepted for 2 reasons: 1)he has Korean heritage 2) he came to Korea to self-identify as Korean. I cant see any sort of issue with that whatsoever. Should he be treated in Korea like Imus treated the Rutgers womens’ basketball team? Basically told “No matter what you do or what you achieve you’ll be a nappy headed ho to me?” If Koreans treated Hines as “just another hapa” then there’d be cries of racism that Koreans cannot see past race even when someone is MVP. Instead Koreans took the high road and embraced Hines as one of their own and shared with him in the glory of his achievements. I suppose you think it’s equally “cheap” for blacks to “claim him” as African American? The whole thing is an entirely adolescent and small-minded way to look at race.

It’s ironic you mention his mother because the major part of the Hines Ward story in Korea is actually the story of how his Korean mother sacrificed to make him the man he is. To Americans this tale doesn’t have specific significance but to Koreans this folk tale of a mother sacrificing for a son is one of the central morality stories in society and has special resonance. It’s also one of the reasons why Hines was immediately accepted despite his differences. “Yes he looks different but seeing what he went through is like what we collectively as a society went through… he is Korean.” That is the unwritten story that played in millions of Koreans’ hearts when he came over. It’s particularly ugly when someone takes a beautiful story of acceptance and breaking down barriers to inject their own prejudices and hangups.

China is a multiethnic society similar in geographic size, population and ethnic diversity as Europe. Like an above poster said, northern Chinese are closer to Manchurian and Korean genetically than Southern Chinese. Japan is a different case its obsession with racial purity is a direct consequence of fascist pre-WWII society and history. Even mixed-race children of ethnic Japanese from Peru and South America are subject to deportation. And for the most part you cannot be Japanese unless your family was considered Japanese during the Meiji period going back to the late 1800s

As for Koreans in China, there’s a province in NE China that’s traditionally been Korean going back thousands of years and is an Independently administered area like Tibet. Like Tibet, the Korean areas have Korean as an official language but like Tibet it’s slowly being sinicized, with the population going from 2/3 Korean to 2/3 Chinese in the past 40 years. Eventually it’ll be almost entirely Chinese and as nondescript from the rest of China. Koreans in other areas of China basically live like Koreans in the US. How you view yourself has much to do with your personal views, how you were raised, personality and economic status

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She didn’t reveal this because it’s pretty clear that had she revealed it, she wouldn’t have gotten on the show or, at least, wouldn’t have stayed very long.

I think the show is crap and it’s only promoting this false sense of acceptance of foreigners in Korean society. Koreans can ask foreign women stupid questions and, because they’re paid, they have to sit there and answer them. Wooooooooo!