Ask A Korean! News: A Possible Hate Crime?

According to Associated Press, a Korean exchange student at Auburn University in Alabama was beaten up by four men on the 19th at his dorm, three days after the Virginia Tech shooting. FBI is currently investigating whether it was hate-motivated. The Korean student was not wounded very seriously.

Given that the exchange student has only been in the country for a month, it seems likely that it was a hate crime. The Korean is not sure if he should be outraged, or be thankful that it is the only reported case of hate crime after the shooting.

When are YOU getting married?

Dear Korean,

Is there a graceful, mature, yet honest way to answer elders' never ending question - 'Why aren't you married?' Or, from my grandmother on this New Year's Day,"There's nothing wrong with meeting someone and getting married. That's the last thing I am waiting to see before I die." The answer, if communicated truthfully, is very complicated. I'm not even quite sure what their point is in asking, since they don't seem to want an explanation. I am going to Korea for a month in the spring and anticipate most of my energy spent justifying my marital status.

Sunny K.

Dear Korean,

I'd like to ask you about why Koreans put so much emphasis on marriage AFTER graduation from college or grad school? It's so funny to see Korean parents force their kids to study all their lives and then wonder why their son or daughter has no marriage prospects at all. My family members (they're Korean) are pushing me to find a wife but I guess I'm driving them crazy since I've decided like many other men, to live a bachelor by choice lifestyle - I don't date and I don't care. Am I causing them to go insane since there would be zero gossip about me?

Slasher

Dear Sunny and Slasher,

You remind the Korean of a Korean joke: "How is a woman like a Christmas cake? They sell like crazy on 22, 23, 24; they slow down on 25, and after 26 they are half-priced." But it's not just women - it's the same for men, although men can afford to be late by about 2~3 years.

The marriage question is seriously the most pesky thing for young Korean people - even young Korean people in Korea have no idea what to do about that. Elders ask that because it's just a requisite step in life. First you go through school, then you get a job, then you get married. There's got to be something wrong with you if you miss one of the steps.

Sadly, the Korean really has no idea, although he empathizes 100 percent. Plenty of Korean elders ask the Korean the same question, the Korean simply replies "it will happen sooner or later," and they generally let it go. Like you suggested, it's not like the elders really want to know what's going on - they just ask because it's what they are supposed to ask.

The Korean is still alive!

He is just swamped with final papers and exams. New posts will come this weekend. In the meantime, send in questions!

The Japanese' Incredible Ability to Forget Their Past - Update 3

The process for publishing a textbook in Japan is the following: first, publishers write a draft of a textbook. Then the textbook has to be "approved" by the Ministry of Education. MoE may outright refuse to approve the book, or approve the book subject to modification.

Out of the 16 new history textbooks for Japanese high school students, not one of them says that Comfort Women were forcibly drafted by the Japanese military. Also, modification requirement was added on to 5 Japanese History textbooks with respect to the number of deaths in the Rape of Nanking, with the MoE opinion that states "the number did not take various different theories as to casualties into enough consideration."