Thursday, June 28, 2007 So: Thinking a lot about Koreans By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
A SHORT trip to Davao City this week has kept me thinking a lot about Koreans. I don’t know a single Korean, by personal or Koreanovela encounter, but I can’t keep them out of my mind these days.
The ubiquitous Koreans have not endeared themselves to Filipinos, at least the ones who have dealt with them in one way or another, despite the Philippines being host of the biggest Korean population in Southeast Asia. To me, they’re a noisy lot when they ride the plane and they always make me feel excluded by their incomprehensible talk. One of these days, I’m going to get one of those “Jumong” actors to teach me Korean.
They have reputed themselves to be cheapskate, abrasive, unruly and scheming, especially the men. And some of them don’t pay their bills. And when they take the taxi, they ask for their change to the last 25 centavos.
Taxi drivers have learned not to take the 25-centavo coin for granted because they just might need it for their Korean passengers.
I am not passing judgment on the Koreans but this is how they are described and perceived by hotel and bar staff, store clerks and taxi drivers I have chatted with in my trips.
I don’t remember in what city this hotel is located, but it has posted a sign that says, “Koreans pay full upon check in.” I asked the receptionist why the sign. He said they previously had Korean guests who checked out without paying and the hotel management didn’t want anymore of them doing that and put the sign up. Handwritten in block letters on bond paper, the sign was tacked on the wall by the hotel manager who, in his seething anger probably, skipped his punctuation marks.
Now, that’s discriminating against Koreans. I’m sure some Koreans would object to the absence of the comma, the hyphen and the period. I am still racking my brains on where this hotel is because I’d like to tuck the punctuation marks where they belong.
One time, a group of young Koreans spent 30 minutes analyzing a pair of Liz Claiborne earrings in an upscale store. They gave the earrings back to the salesgirl and graciously thanked her. When the salesgirl attended to me, she said that’s how Koreans “shop.” They simply look at the item like they’re going to buy it.
The reason I’ve been thinking about Koreans since I returned from my Davao trip is this: Davao City officials want the businesses of Koreans in their city looked into because they suspect that many of these have been put up through fraudulent means or without permits. The City Council passed a resolution on that and Mayor Rodrigo Duterte approved it.
It’s not only Davao that has this problem of illegal businesses of Koreans. Cebu and other cities have it, too, only that none of them has passed a resolution of similar nature. I don’t agree with this Davao Council move because it’s an unfair generalization of Koreans. Like the hotel sign, it’s discriminating against them.
About five years ago, a group of Korean TV journalists, through an interpreter, asked me if the Cebu media was singling out Koreans in negative news stories. At that time, about five crime stories involving Koreans (as perpetrators and as victims) had come out in the paper. It seems to them, they said, whenever a Korean figured in the news, it was always because of something bad that he had done.
No, I said through the interpreter. The Koreans are not singled out. They’re in the news because of what they did. If it were someone of another race, that person would be treated by the news desk in the same manner. The stories about them get highlighted because they’re not ordinary citizens; they’re foreigners in Philippine shores who have misbehaved. There is no agenda in whatever form. Period.
