How will these people be received in Korea?

Question

Three of my friends have planned on going to Korea for at least three years. I know Korea's a beautiful country with really nice people in general, but these are really good friends of mine I just want to know if there is any chance they might face discrimination or any other social problems of the sort?

-An African-American girl who speaks some Korean
-A Korean American who has doesn't know the language and is getting pretty worried about it.
-A girl who knows a whole lot about Korea and its culture and speaks Korean more fluently than any of the others. She has never been to Korea but she likes the country so much she would pretend to be Korean sometimes?! But she's not Korean she's Chinese.

Answer 1

Ok, first, the guy above me, James, is a tool.

Dog is not their favorite food. I have met more Koreans that have never eaten dog than have. I am not going to even bother addressing his other crazy talk.

Ok, here is the honest breakdown that I am about to get many thumbs downs for.

The black chick is going to face discrimination. In situations where she has time to overcome it (coworkers, students, etc.) she will be fine due to her interest in Korean. But I have been blocked from entering Night Clubs and Karaoke many times because I was with a black guy. Most Koreans will be fine, but when her race is an issue it will be a glaring one.

The Korean chick better just claim she is Chinese. Koreans will be very disappointed in her for not knowing the language and she will have a hard time.

The Chinese chick, if she is good enough, should just pretend she is Korean... not by lying, but by not answering. If she is not good enough, she needs to make the fact that she is Chinese known as early as possible.

Koreans love non-Koreans who know even a little of the language, but they are very rough with people of Korean heritage that are not perfect.

All of the specifics aside, your friends are going to have a great time in Korea. It is really a blast here.

Answer 2

There is a great chance that all three will face discrimination.

1) the African American girl will probably just have to deal with stares, gawks and whispers.

2) the Korean American will have it the worst of the three. She will never be accepted as a Korean in Korea.

3) the Chinese girl should won't be discriminated against if she can pass as a Korean.

I don't know if the Korean American will be able to last here for the full three years, but the other two should be OK.

James: that's really coming out the wrong end.

Answer 3

Because my dad is in the US Army I basically grew up in Korea. Did most of my schooling here, well except college. Your friends will not have a problem, Im half korean half american and trust me the korean side does not show and I've never been discriminated. It also depends on where your friends will be, in a city like Seoul, you'll see people from all walks of life and no one seems to mind. You head out to the more rural areas and they might get some looks but thats just cause it isn't an everyday occurence for them, which is understandable. Theyll have a blast here. If they have any questions just let me know

Answer 4

if your friends love everything that is korean, there is no way that koreans will treat them unfairly or shabbily.

although i might say that koreans have this attitude of stererotyping other peoples, like, if one american does something bad, they will think that all americans will be the same and all americans would most likely do bad things.

and oh yeah. if you are a dog lover, you better stay away from korea because their favorite food is nothing more than dogs.

watch this clip. i am warning you that this is very graphic and horrible.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=korea+dog+massacre&search=Search

just choose any of the videos with dog massacre in it.

koreans are closed-minded most of the time because they think they have the highest morals in the world. but trust me, they only think that they have but what they do is opposite of what they say.

also, koreans who go abroad are more likely to be bad ones compared to the ones who are left at home.