Whiteness in Liberalism: Down With Tyranny! on Natural Corruption in Asia

Generally, my posts about whiteness tend to address people we'd typically refer to as conservative, white and Christian. Sad fact that may be for some readers, it's true that this demographic loves, more than any other, to speak from the corrupt heart of whiteness.

I have a treat for you, today. A Change of Pace Post. I was reading my news feeds when I came across a post on Down With Tyranny! A little left of liberal, this blog is a daily reader for me. Some of the political analysis is very sharp and I generally agree with the cynical wit in its tone.

Today, one of its bloggers published a piece entitled "Is it safe to eat or drink anything in China?" The title was enough to make me cringe. Turns out, the stupid title is the best part of the post. Framing the body of text about the Chinese government wanting the judicial system to crack down on food safety regulations violators, even suggesting the death penalty be applied to some violators, and a quick summary of famous food problems, is a very problematic intro and conclusion. The post is below my commentary in its entirety.

Look, I loathe the Republican Party. I hate American Conservativism. I'm a strident anti-capitalist. But the post is bad even though it's directed at Republicans I love to hate. In my opinion, the author wants to convey three things: 1) He or She will be as vegan as can be, whatever that means; 2) He or She is frightened to eat or drink anything in China; 3) He or She doesn't like Republicans. That's fine, I suppose. It's not necessarily interesting, but nothing wrong with the desire to convey these truths. Unless, you decide to convey them with a claim that Asia is so fundamentally corrupt that the Republicans who want to emulate Chinese business models must be worse.

You should not do this. It's a racist claim. In this post, the Republicans aren't bad because the US economy is corrupt and our government is corrupt, too. In this post, the Republicans are bad because all of Asia is corrupt. Here's how I'd summarize the blog: "Chinese business is very corrupt; well, Asian business is naturally corrupt, don't you know. We've already proved that in other posts. Trust us. Anyway, you might be served dog meat at any moment in place of other meat in China, and you can't be sure the bottled water is safe. Oh, well, I'm a vegan so at least I don't have to worry about the dog meat part of the problem over there. Anyway, because the Chinese are handing out the death penalty, maybe in the future some time, for food safety regulation violations and the Republicans want to snuff out most regulation in the US, the Republicans are super bad because Chinese business practices are, as we've already shown, naturally corrupt." That's the fucking post. I'm not kidding. The tags for the blog are: China and Regulation. No mention of Republicans, the immensity and immediacy of US food problems. Instead, the author rolls out the infamous stories we already know about Chinese food poisoning and lax regulation.

I'm really pissed about two things:

• So, it's not corrupt capitalist practice in Asia that is at fault for the horrifying business practices in China. No, it's the "nature of commerce" in all of Asia that is corrupt. What a claim! It's the nature of commerce. If you don't see the problem, let me explain. The point of the blog is to shame Republicans. All the stories about food safety in the middle of the post can be dumped because the blog is about the first several paragraphs and the last line. The real concern for the author is that commerce in North America is corrupt and becoming more corrupt and in China it's already very corrupt. Therefore, it's a problem that Republicans want to emulate Chinese business and regulatory practices. OK. We get it. But the nature comment is way out of line. It offers our corrupt commerce then, now and in the future a pass, in that a reader can infer by the initial claim that we have a different commerce in nature. Namely, one that is not naturally corrupt. As in, we are better than them. It's a fucking nationalist, exceptionalist swipe at Republicans by a progressive blogger. This, more than anything else in the post, deserves condemnation. They are bad because they are like The Chinese, the people who do naturally corrupt things.
• Dog meat references. What point do they serve? It's a racist dog whistle. Mix it with the smug reference to the author's veganism and we have proof that the post is nothing more than a hysterical and neurotic grunt: a half-assed attack on Republicans. It's lazy stuff. And it's smug.

The post follows with all emboldened text my added emphasis:

This morning we tried to make the point that the very nature of commerce in China-- in Asia really-- is built on fraud and corruption. Reactionary American politicians like Pat Toomey (R-PA), Ron Johnson (R-WI) and John Boehner (R-OH) admire China so much-- Communism or not-- because their financial and commercial system embodies the very depths of caveat emptor taken to the extreme. In two weeks I'll be back in China and, I have to admit, I know I have to be warier than in most places about what I consume. What's in the bottled water? How safe is it to eat in a restaurant, even a highly rated one?

So it was with some interest that I noted yesterday that China will be handing out the death penalty for food safety violators. An announcement like that presupposes some real problems that need to be addressed. Their highest court has ordered lower court judges to toughen up the sentences for people violating food safety standards "amid deepening public concerns over the country's food safety following a wave of recent scandals." If someone dies because of food safety violations, the death penalty is now in order-- and government officials taking bribes to protect the criminals will also be facing harsher penalties.

From milk laced with melamine, pigs fed with performance-enhancing drugs to watermelons juiced up with growth-stimulating chemicals, a series of recent scandals have outraged Chinese consumers, despite ramped-up government crackdown and state media campaign against food safety violations.

From last September to April this year, Chinese courts have tried and convicted 106 people accused of violating food safety, including two who received life imprisonment last month in a "melamine milk" case, Xinhua reported.

As vegan as I can be-- especially when traveling in dodgy countries-- I'm not worried about being fed dog meat disguised as something else. But I am interested in the new organic food movement started to sprout up in China's cities. Can it be trusted? Maybe...

In recent years China has been hit by a number of food scandals and fears about safety have lingered. In 2008, 300,000 babies became seriously ill and six babies died after being given formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. In April this year, police seized 40 tons of beansprouts which had been treated with dangerous growth promoting chemicals and hormones, while this month, watermelons started exploding in the fields because they had been treated with too much accelerant.

In March health officials discovered pork that glowed and iridescent blue in the dark because it had been contaminated by a bacteria.

Amid the scares it was reported that China's government departments were running their own organic farms to feed staff, sparking criticism that officials were putting their own safety before that of the people. ... [O]rganic farmers and a host of co-operative schemes that lease small parcels of land to urbanites who want to feel the soil under their fingernails-- not unlike British allotment schemes-- report business is suddenly booming.

Peng Xunan, the founder of the "Farmlander" allotment scheme that has 200 sites across China said the plots were being rented in ever-growing numbers, and no longer just be pensioners looking to occupy their time.

"I'd say it was split three ways between families who want to teach their children where food comes from, older people in their retirement, but in recent months definitely a growing number worried about food safety concerns after all these reports of lax food safety," he said.

Interestingly, the other China-- Taiwan-- is having a similar situation, with legislators urging tougher penalties for tainted food and better regulations for factories manufacturing food products, particularly sports drinks, juices, tea drinks, fruit jam or syrups, tablets or powders, all of which have been found to be poisoned with plasticizers.

A legislator of the ruling Kuomintang proposed yesterday to revise regulations to levy stiffer penalties on suppliers of food products that threaten consumers' health, establish an information system for all products, and change the listing of plasticizers in the second category of toxic chemical products.

...Chang pointed out that the current law only stipulates fines between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000 for using plasticizers like carcinogen di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) or other toxic substances in food and beverages, not enough to deter unconscionable food processors and suppliers from harming consumers.

An integrated registration mechanism should be set up to record all information concerning raw materials, components, additives, manufacturing and packaging to help manage every step of the food and beverage supply chain, Chang said.

Such a product identity system will also help to track products, he added.

Oh-- and the crackdown and regulations... that's not what Toomey, Johnson and Boehner admire about China.

 (source: Down With Tyranny! Here's the post on their site.)

dagNotes: On The Perverted Foreigner in Capitalist Culture (Korean Edition)

Gusts of Popular Feelings blogger, Matt, recently posted about a story in the Gyeongin Ilbo newspaper. I quickly commented on his blog. My notes here are a slightly different version of those comments.

Matt keeps a good blog. It's worth visiting. To understand some of my points in this post, you should read his post first.

Matt often posts about the grotesquely anti-foreigner popular press on Gusts. This form of journalism directed towards immigrants and immigrant labor/laborers is similar to much of what you find in Europe and the United States--the article's headline addresses the laborers rather than the institutions and business owners. Considering Matt's analysis of the Gyeongin Ilbo article, it's clear that foreigner teachers are used as a warrant for the claim that reform from business owners is necessary.

I'd like to see a study of journalism that examines the use of foreign labor corrupting local culture as a warrant for calls to increase national security. In addition, the research could illustrate how national security in capitalist culture is equivalent to the well-being of consumers.

As Matt notes, the Korean government is exploring means to improve the standards and practices of hagwon owners. Why does the popular media focus on the employees of hagwons? To some extent, it would make no difference if foreigners were prohibited from teaching at hagwons altogether. The media, I'd predict, would shift its focus from perverted foreign teachers to unqualified and inexperienced Korean teachers. My claim is that the popular media shelters business owners from criticism in spite of the government's acknowledgement that the business owners' practices are, in fact, the problem.

I'm confident the global study of popular journalism I have proposed would find similarities in the culture(s) of readership in spite of different ideological attitudes/directions of nations, governments and markets. The critique of foreign employees, like the critique of Native Speaking English Teachers, is not distinctly Korean, rather a global capitalist construct that elite culture permits and cultivates in bargain with popular discourse to shield its unethical and illegal behavior. The wild stories about perverted foreigners is market derived and nurtured and directly related to what capitalist politicians and theoreticians like to call the liberal social order of the market. It's part of the mess that prevents market action from being transparent. (See Hayek and Mises on market transparency for classical capitalist discussion regarding the opaque nature of the market.)

There's something to profit from the exploitation of immigrants and their labor. Such exploitation permits regulation of the market in useless ways that can satiate the desire for reform from the public discourse, from voters, from consumers, while sheltering the capitalist from the effects of reform. We might want to consider, once again, we're being presented with a strong critique of the usefulness of capitalism itself because this demonization and perversion of the foreigner directly contradicts a keystone claim about the catallactic economic activity in a free capitalist market--that business between strangers creates friends rather than enemies. The business in capitalist markets clearly has trouble creating friends, in spite of trade agreements and opening borders. I'd argue it's best at creating arguments for enforced homogeneous nations that, as they grow more prosperous, grow more authoritarian and xenophobic.

It's not too difficult to understand that the claim all foreigners will become perverts suits a narrative that supports the consumer economy as well as the government that regulates it. What does this mean in Korea? Nobody wants education reform because education reform would require fundamentally altering hagwon culture, which would represent a national cultural transformation, likely a radical alteration.

We see this daily in North America where the right wing resurgence in recent elections in the US and Canada, the movement to the right of liberal politics, as well as the wholesale acceptance without much struggle of neoliberal and American libertarian principles, can be understood as an attempt to maintain a concrete idea of what it means to be American or Canadian. The regression for North America involves the fantasy of white, Christian, masculine identity. In Korea, it's an identification with fantastic Korean identity that, like the American identity, has never actually existed. Consumers want to buy their identification. Studying at hagwons is compulsory for most Koreans. Well, so now is the presence of perverted foreign teachers who want to corrupt the national purity.

As I argued above, this is not a Korean characteristic. It is the result of capitalism.

Back on the Bus with You (and Your Other-ing Elbow, too)

More than once on this blog, I have tried to address how quick US citizens, especially white folks, are to cry Xenophobia while living in Korea. It's true that Korea has a reputation for being rude to foreigners. People are pushy in the streets; they will look at you, but won't talk to you; they'll even talk about you while looking at you yet ignoring you.

But let's not kid ourselves: this is how foreign others are treated in the US as well as, well every other place I have been come to think about it.

I have yet to experience racism, though. Koreans have told me how rich I am, how lucky I am, how educated I am, etc. They like to draw rough caricatures of me: all end up representing me as an Ugly American of some sort. That is, until I get to know them.

I once got into an argument in my public school classroom with a teacher because I told a student who insisted Americans are all rich that I wasn't and the majority of Americans are not either. I told him, "in fact, we are poor." Speaking on behalf of millions of poor Americans, I felt proud of myself not permitting the nonsense in my classroom. My co-teacher stepped in and mentioned my clothes and then my wealth. After all, I was a traveler and living in Korea. Well, I stopped class. Turned on my laptop (a sign of wealth by the way, and it is and I must admit that,) turned on the projector, and connected the Internet. I showed them the poverty in the US. They shut up. The students ALL apologized. The adult teacher said nothing else about the matter. I had embarrassed her. It's not nice to do that to an adult here. Confucius still clouds daily life in Korea. On the other hand, I wasn't going to permit lies in our class to save her face.

I am a teacher. I am here to teach. I am not in this country to piss and moan about my personal treatment. I am here to work with others. If I were here to make money, to travel, to be tourist, I'd be at a hagwon (a for-profit, language education business) and tutoring. But I believe in public education and I am decidedly not a tourist.

I have found that by engaging my hosts, I am always treated well. Always. But engagement with others is difficult. I understand. I also understand that some people who travel are not cut out for traveling. What many travelers want is to be catered to in a manner that meets the satisfactions they are accustomed to in their native countries and as consumers in their local markets. Or, they want to treat Korea as their Zoo. I think it's unfair to come to a country like Korea and expect to be treated as anything other than other. Unless. Unless you are willing to take some shots, to be hurt, but to push back and insist your permanency in your new local environment.

Each time I return a shove in the street or a rude look or whatever weirdness I am given by a strange Korean I don't know yet, I try to return the action with a smile and some Korean language. If another return is offered it is always kind. The worst thing that happens is that I receive a grimace from an old man or lady. And I love the older Koreans. For what they been through in their lives--occupation and war--they have earned the right to grimace at foreigners in their land.

***5/27, 12:44 pm: It has been suggested to me that my use of "return" above makes it sound like I am returning a shove with a shove-with-a-smile. No. I am using return to implicate the return in discourse. The shove is a speech act. People push me out of the way rather than speak to me for a reason. It means many things, but one of the most significant ideas communicated by the shove is "I don't want to talk with you." I have learned that Koreans are incredibly shy and so are apt to appear incredibly obstinate. I return the shove with a speech act that invites a revision of their act. I think insisting that they "see" me again (revise) is important.***

AND LET US NOT FORGET KOREA'S HISTORY. You all do know that the Korean War has never ended. No treaty was ever signed between the US and Korea. We are still at war with each other. It's worth considering that Koreans know this and that Americans seem to not give a shit. Well, let's be honest. I am willing to wager that more than half of the foreigners in Korea, American or not, do not know this.

It is not an exaggeration for me to say that most foreigner teachers (not the students) I meet, including the Korean-Americans here know less than I do about Korean history, geography, and its local culture. Even the foreigners who speak the language well are not necessarily informed. How is this possible?!? Maybe they have read wikipedia. I think this is suspect. I did my homework before coming here and I assumed that others who wanted to live here would feel the same obligation. Well, I actually started doing the homework years ago when I wanted to come here. My point is that there are many reasons for Koreans' lack of trust. Foreigners come here to make money, eat, drink, have sex, make friends, buy stuff, and leave. And many foreign teachers make a lot of money. Many foreign teachers also often talk as if it is their right and privilege to come here and make as much as they want without doing anything. In other words, they do not behave as guests who are asked to be here and granted limited access; they act as if Korea is theirs to do with as they wish. Yes, they are little Imperialists and they are colonizing Korean space. And many Koreans hate it.

I am not going to surprise any high school or University teachers who read DagSeoul by saying this. But I will piss off almost every foreign teacher in Korea who will read this. We do not do much teaching here. The students in hagwons are studying for multiple choice tests. The majority of their teachers are teaching Idiomatic Expressions and some of their teachers are great performers and tell fun stories and use neat technology. In the high school I teach at, I see 20 classes of 35-45 students for 50 minutes once a week. Really. What can I do as a language teacher? Not much. Koreans do not work on composition and do not involve much reading in their language education. They work out of text books that target certain learning areas in language so the students can score well on tests. The students can read English and with prompts in the form of questions written in Korean language, they can tell you some basic things about English syntax and grammar. I do more for my students just talking with them in English, to familiarize them with the language, than I can teach them English.

It was shocking when I first got here. To the point, the majority of "native speaking English teachers" (NSETs) in Korea do not teach much at all. They work. We all work hard here. But most of the NSETs are not teachers. It's obvious talking to some of them that they don't know what they are doing. Now public school teachers here are more with it. But many are young and inexperienced--in fact, here to get experience. I don't understand what the Korean government is thinking bringing new teachers here to teach the English language. They should bring experienced teachers. (And this no offense to recent college grads coming here to teach, have fun, and get experience. Good for you.)

At any rate, the students are my concern. And many NSET folks care more for themselves and their lifestyles as travelers than they do care for their students. In other words, they are not teachers.