Korea Times Editor Accused of Racism Against Foreigners
Oh Young-jin the chief editorial writer at the Korea Times is at it again. This time he wrote an editorial titled “Ugly Foreigners” that described three cases of road rage in Korea involving foreigners. For those that don’t know the ROK recently implemented a new law that made road rage incidents like the one described illegal. The article is actually good information for foreigners living in Korea to know. However, there was no need to give the editorial that title so to me it seems that Mr. Oh published the title as click bait which has worked. Now the Korea Times has been flooded with emails accusing Mr. Oh of racism. Oh has actually had to publish not one, but two editorials defending himself against racism. What I continue to love about Mr. Oh is not his penchant for click bait articles, but the fact that he continues to use the email address of foolsdie5@ktimes.com. It seems that if Mr. Oh wants people to take him seriously he might want to start with using a professional email address.
Koreans should double down on learning how to drive and follow traffic laws!
Korea Times provides less relevant content than the ROK Drop, and does have nasty adware, so it’s obvious why they do the click-bait. Their repeat viewer count is fading faster than [insert cute phrase here]…
“Korea Times Editor Accused of Racism Against Foreigners”
Accusations of racism are no longer a thing to be concerned with. They are simply a sign you are dealing with ignorant yet sensitive whiners who lack the ability to describe why they are offended… likely because their offense is invalid.
In most cases, those crying racism should be ridiculed rather than pacified in any way.
In this case, countries, rather than races, made up the examples… and one of the examples was a fellow Asian. That should be a clue the motivations were not racist in nature but more likely nationalist.
Of course the term “cultural racism” is now thrown about… trying to (falsely) associate valid judgements based on cultural traits with (mostly) invalid judgements based on racial traits… even though not every culture is equal… and many are clearly invalid.
There is absolutely nothing to see here… and anyone offended by these examples have over-estimated their self-importance and forgotten that foreigners are not welcome to menace the locals.
Protip: Don’t say restrictions on Islamic refugees are racist and you won’t get kneed in the groin… verbally or actually.
Agree with Chicken: its not racist.
One thing which I believe may contribute in particular to foreigners, or locals, having road rage issues in Korea is a bit of surprise at Korean driving practices. I think most foreigners come to Korea with expectations of a high level of order and precision such as they see in subways and reinforced in their Korean work places. What they see on roads is something else. I suspect this incongruity in Korean road behavior catches many people off guard including Koreans themselves!
Bad traffic congestion is the mother of road rage (in most cases: some people are just angry nuts!) so let’s look at a few typical Korean road practices and related solutions that could help improve traffic flow and decrease the potential of rage;
• Enforce no-stop areas for Taxis. When taxis can stop anywhere or even park anywhere it impedes traffic. Have you ever seen a taxi or two stopped and just waiting, not even picking up, in a critical lane or location? Removing one lane from a planned multi-lane road horribly impedes traffic. Look at Gangnam Road or any major street in Seoul at 6-7 PM on a weekday. Imagine that road with a fully operational right lane!!! Taxi riders should be able to walk a few meters or even 50 meters from designated stop areas just as they do in Hong Kong or other cities and taxis should have to use cut-outs from the lane to park and wait for fares.
o Ditto for private cars: drivers should consider those behind them and not whimsically stop anywhere and everywhere to drop off or pick someone up.
• Right turn lanes are for turning: how many times have you seen whole lanes of traffic, dozens of cars and passengers, held up by one selfish driver who wants to “cut the queue” and “merge” but runs out of road before a forced exit turn? What do they do? Simple really, just put the hazard lights on and sit a bit in both lanes so the actual, legal turn lane cars can’t pass and turn. It can be done with any type car from a Morning to Equus but of course an Equus does it better. [this turn lane trait I admit is my pet peeve, the one that gets me a bit riled]
• On highways left lanes are for passing and right lanes are for driving. Simple enough. This is especially true if you do not choose to drive at the highway speed limit. If you prefer driving at 80 kph on a 90 kph roadway, please drive in the right lane.
• Be prepared to drive your car when the traffic light turns green. Traffic is bad, if you are the first car don’t be selfish and play with your smartphone until the person behind has to blow their horn to make you go, just because you know, as the first car, you’ll get through OK.
• Enforce no-go hash-mark areas at all major intersections: No stopping in hash mark areas. If your car can’t move fully across the hash marks it means you can’t enter the intersection. This would prevent the horrendous cross blocks that regularly occur when no traffic police are on duty at major intersections.
observer,
Assuming you are over the age of majority, you should already know that asking for more government action means more cops, more bureaucrats to oversee them, more restrictions on unrelated items, and much higher taxes. And the few additional cops actually added will be stopping more folks and clogging up the lanes as they’re writing tickets, mostly to foreigners, never to taxi drivers.
Is that what you really want?
You are correct. No more police, like Hong Kong motorcycle cops everywhere, but cameras in turn lanes would be nice. And I did see Taxis being moved along yesterday as a matter of fact.
I use Chickenhead’s reasoning all the time when I speak to half blood Koreans living in Korea, Zainichi Koreans, Korean immigrants and especially Korean-Americans about racism.
Remember, Korea has no Korean gays and there is absolutlely no racism in Korea… none. The blood is pure in Korea, so racism is never an issue
Korean discrimination against a Korean-American is not racism.
It is nationalism and/or culturalism… but it really hard to be racist against one’s own race.
But I like screaming racism until the other person gives up… then I can declare I won the argument.