INDIANS ARE GETTING BANNED IN SOUTH KOREA

Brago7even
10 min readDec 30, 2023

--

By the time this post ends, you as an Indian will no longer have a thirst for K-pop stars and South Koreans,

  • NDIANS NOT ALLOWED :

These banners may be seen on practically all Seoul (Korea) clubs.

  • Islam and Hindus out :

These kinds of banners are rather typical in South Korea’s Daegu city.

Although these banners aren’t found everywhere in South Korea, they certainly portray the ugly truth of racism toward Indians among Koreans.

Imagine this scenario: you’re going to a store to buy some garments, but the moment you touch them, the shopkeeper instantly gets up and begins cleaning the items you just touched. how would you feel about it? This has, however, frequently occurred with Indians in Korean stores.

Forget about Indians; in South Korea, seven out of ten foreigners claim to have encountered racism at some point. The truth is that after Britishers, Now South Koreans have begun to view Indians as inferior and untouchable

Even after India and Korea have the same colonial historic background and even after having a smaller economy then Indians, do you know why South Koreans hate Indians?

Well just because of two really superficial reasons,
After reading these two extremely superficial reasons, you may wonder how South Koreans, whose literacy rate is actually 98%, can have so minimal mind.

  • Only for Koreans but not for Indians,

Indians are prohibited from entering Korean restaurants located within India. Actually, there are about 15 to 20 Korean restaurants open in Anandpur, Andhra Pradesh, close to the KIA Motors manufacture

(not the same restaurant where the sting operation took place)

When THE WIRE (an Indian news channel) conducted a sting operation in these restaurants, It was discovered that, As an Indian you couldn’t even enter in these restaurants, so forget about dining. The level of hatred that these Koreans have for Indians is so extreme that the employees of these restaurant chains are actually nationals of Nepal instead of India, and this is all taking place in an Indian land

So, consider this: if South Koreans can engage in this kind of racism in an Indian location, imagine how high racism would be in South Korea.

Recently, Raj (Subtle crazy Korea), an Indian YouTuber with a base in Korea, brought attention to a significant problem involving Indians on his channel. Raj has spent the last nine years residing in Korea, but when he traveled there last year with a few friends from New Delhi, India. and one of his friends suggested we should go to a club. However, Raj has never been to a club in Korea.

Since this was his and his friends’ first time attending a club in Korea, he decided to vlog about the experience. However, the moment Raj and his friends walk into the first club, the security guard instantly stops them just because they were Indians. They were directed to try the next club after the security guard informed them “They were not welcome here’’. and they walked from there, going to another club where they were treated even worse; the club’s security guard told them to run away.

There isn’t even a security guard at the third club anymore; instead, a banner with the words “Individuals from India and Pakistan are not allowed” is posted there.

So, before we continue on this subject, please consider this: How would an Indian treat these South Koreans?
These days, Indians adore K-dramas, K-pop, and Korean superstars.

Essentially, we are ignorant of the true attitudes of South Koreans toward Indians. As I previously mentioned, how Raj and his fellow travelers were turned away from three different clubs, and while this was going on, many Koreans were present there, but none of them offered any help to them.

Now, recall this incident in which a Korean YouTuber was made fun of by two boys in Mumbai; the video became viral. Who intervened to protect the YouTuber? — An Indian man.

And they were Indians who also provided online support to the South Korean YouTuber. In fact, the Mumbai police detained the two boys for acting inappropriately with a foreigner.

Raj also videotaped it and posted it on social media, much like the Korean YouTuber, but nobody from the Korean administration actually saw it at all. and even if you think that im just a hater of south Koreans? then check it yourself, Search “KOREA HATES INDIA” on YouTube to see a number of videos in which the people candidly discuss their personal experiences with racism.

In one of these videos, an Indian girl talks about her experiences, saying that the other Koreans would always get up and leave from there in the subway seats as soon as she sat down on a seat there, treating her like she was untouchable. She claimed that since this was such a common experience for her in South Korea, she got used to it now.

Let’s talk about children now, as this will demonstrate just how much Koreans despise Indians. One girl in the interview mentioned that her friend, who is Indian and works as a schoolteacher, was informed by some Korean students that “We hate Indians, because they look muddy” If childrens are capable of saying such things, Imagine the extent to which bigotry and hatred have permeated in their society

Now when you look at it, the reason why racism has increased is quite intriguing. What’s happening is that South Korea, the fifth most literate nation in the world, Well it has made its definition of beauty so rigid and stereotypical that, Forget about Indians and Europeans, even many Koreans themselves are unable to achieve these standards.

Some essential requirements for employment in Korea are that C is the optimum bra cup size, prominent noses are preferred by government bosses, and attractive eyes are desired by large enterprises. therefore all Koreans must meet these requirements in order to get employed in South Korea; forget about private work. The employment ministry even advises job seekers on Twitter to undergo plastic surgery first if they want employment, as their government supports this.

That’s why their hatred extends beyond Indians; racism in general affects foreigners to a great amount.

as an example — Anglo-Korean Nicky Kim moved to Korea from England after graduating, but she had to settle there, so she applied for a job and, according to with Korean customs, included her normal photo with her resume. When Kim arrived for the interview, she was shocked to learn that the company had rejected her application outright, due to the fact that she didn’t look like the photo.

Kim was turned down so many times that she eventually went back to England. However, this is not a unique or even the first instance; in South Korea, this is quite common and goes by the name OEMO JISANG JUUI, which translates to “Looks are supreme.” unlike other countries, where applying for jobs only requires submitting a resume, where in Korea, looks also plays a significant role in the hiring process.

900 Korean enterprises, including government offices, participated in a study; of those 900 businesses, 60% were required to submit application images. This indicates that this is not the case in one or two companies. additionally, the candidate’s selection is based on their physical appearance; for this reason, discrimination against Westerners is practiced for their beauty in Korea.

And discrimination exists not just based on appearance or color but also on language and geographic location. It’s not as though their government hasn’t tried to stop this discrimination in the past; the issue is that every time they attempt to take action, their government gets put in danger.

A member of parliament actually attempted to introduce an anti-discrimination bill in 2016; in fact, the bill had already cleared their legislative committee at that time. However, the government ultimately had to veto the bill due to the influence of large corporations like Trade Groups and Korea employees federation, and they opposed this bill, after which the Government had to veto this bill in the end.

Since these companies provided the party fund, why won’t any government listen to them? Furthermore, even the government cannot be held entirely responsible for this because lookism has become ingrained in Korean society to the point where people consider what a student would receive as a graduation gift. Plastic surgery

Yes, their government proudly says this on the website of Government medical tourism, Koreans themselves accept it that lookism is very common thing in their country, and now where look are in so high demand, how can a seller can sit quietly, That is the reason you will see advertisements for plastic surgery everywhere — on buses, on the roof of buildings, even on Korean subway stations.

Up until now, we have only discussed racism or hate in general terms. However, when it comes to Indians specifically, the hostility they face is quite different.Now, why is it the case? due to two factors: as I previously mentioned, South Korea’s Now, why is it the case? due to two factors: as I previously mentioned,

(literacy rate of South Korea in 2018)

South Korea’s Literacy rates was 98.80% in 2018, but are you aware of what about unemployment rate ?

As you can see clearly their unemployment rate is just increasing every year, Yet, in reality, their own thinking plays a significant part. As we can see, educated people in the US, Europe, and India also work in modest jobs, but this is not the situation in South Korea.

As a result, there is currently such as severe labor shortage in the Korean industrial and agricultural sectors that the government of Korea is having to recruit blue-collar workers from overseas because these individuals are educated and do not want to perform basic duties. so many workers in korea are actually imported from India,

In fact, Korea and India have an agreement to source skilled labor from India. so that Korean agriculture, manufacture, construction, waste disposal, meat transportation and many more sectors should not have worker shortage

And this is the reason why there is so much racism against Indians in Korea. The mindset of Koreans is that Indians work for us in small jobs. Aside from this, racism against Indians is also very common in Korea because Koreans are obsessed with the color white skin, even though Indian skin is wheatish rather than white. This is a major factor in racism against Indians in South Korea.

Koreans ourselves acknowledge this; in fact, an interesting survey by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy revealed that many koreans openly acknowledged that they thought of Indians as being unsafe, underdeveloped, and old-fashioned.

Are you looking for the source of this issue?
The main contributing factor is the lack of knowledge about Indians among Korean citizens. They only know stereotypes about them, which are 99% false and were established by the West due to the experiences of one South Indian who left his native Kerala to immigrate to the West and try to fit in.

Approximately 12,000 Indians, including 300 of Indian descent, reside in South Korea. Approximately 1 lakh tourists visit the country each year. Given these circumstances, the general public is largely unaware of Indian culture. Additionally, official diplomatic relations between India and South Korea were established relatively late — around 1973, or nearly 30 years after India’s independence — and the prime minister of South Korea initially viewed India as an enemy nation because of our alliance with Russia. and South Korea is a ally of America

And after reading this post, I’m not attempting to suggest that Indians should avoid K-culture or that Koreans should despise Indians; in fact, Indian culture is centered around ATHITI DEVO BHAVA. I am simply making the point that it is important that Indians realize that while it is not bad to follow their culture and take positive aspects of it, we also need to remember to appreciate other countries without sacrificing our own.

Lastly i remember a quote from my father - The forest that looks green and beautiful from a distance is equally dangerous and horrible from inside.

--

--