koreans on the whole are not racist, nowhere near as you make out. you seem to think because of their spurious census-taking practices and because of a 'hermit kingdom' stereotype that was last relevant in the early joseon dynasty era that korea is some sort of ethnonationalist state where race ideology is foremost, like a sort of (south?)east asian rhodesia. it is absolutely not.
but conservatives and people who are inclined to racial thinking of course have their own bugbears about the korean diaspora, mixed-race marriages, etc. it's no different to how white paleo-conservatives or grandparents of a certain generation think about inter-racial marriages or immigrants in any other country. korea is not some unique experiment in running a country along lines of racial purity. a lot of the tough treatment that gyopos and other diaspora members receive from nationalist/traditionalist natives is because of a supposed lack of patiotism: they're the groups that left for better shores when the difficult post-war task of rebuilding the country and economy was at hand. it's not really so much a genetic purity/miscegenation thing. it's a fear of a loss of identity/lack of stable future with working-age, productive members of society.
i've even heard it said on a korean politics+culture podcast that those inclined to such thinking mind a lot more when a korean man marries someone outside of their culture. where white supremacists tend to fixate/fetishize the other races 'taking our women' and 'spoiling our virgins', koreans actually mind a lot more when a male steps outside of the culture. that's because, in their traditional gender roles, it's the woman who does the child-rearing and socialization. therefore a korean male-foreign female pairing means that the kids will be raised without benefit of korean domestic/maternal culture; they will be noticeably un-korean. these anxieties are not entirely unfounded considering their plummeting birth rate. it could be worse: they could be trying to expand their lebensraum, like russia, in face of similar imminent population decline.
as for the korea vs. japan stuff, yes, koreans again of a certain age and generation kick back against japanese products, goods, cultural influences, etc. almost all japanese products and imports were completely banned until the 1990s ffs; i've spoken to koreans my age who never had a gameboy or nintendo console, for e.g., growing up, whereas at the same time the west was going nuts for pokémon. that's how much of a filter they had on japanese cultural products until very, very recently. check any of their right-wing tabloids, the korean equivalent of a fox news and so on. again, this isn't surprising or unique. what is perhaps unique is the scale of the hurt/grievance still held towards japan by korea. it's not like european nations after ww2: the wounds are still open. again, i'm not saying every single korean person spits and sings the national anthem at the merest mention of japan. but the anti-japanese thing is definitely a current and sentiment in korean society. an administration's stance towards japan (like the USA and like north korea) are important factors in their foreign policy decisions and election campaigns.
koreans do eat sushi. they go to izakayas. they (now, after many long years of bans) enjoy japanese music, films, novels. these things can coexist in an equivocal relationship with political disagreement, fear, resentment, etc, at the misdeeds of their former colonial oppressor. this is why they are NOT racist: because they hate the japanese state, qua the rising sun, qua the imperial japanese; not that they hate all japanese people en masse. they have the same love/hate relationship with the (overpowering) influence of american culture and american goods. the point was that naming sushi as a stereotypically korean thing is just the sort of thing a guy who has never left new jersey would do. koreans take a lot of pride in their national cuisine and 'their' dishes. sushi is not one of them, LMAO.
Last edited by uziq (2022-04-13 00:25:49)
