I am not thrilled with the opposite sex of late
There's a certain segment of white maledom who think they are God's gift to women--the ones I am most exposed to are the kind who think they are God's gift to Korean women particularly, because Korean men are short/effeminate/abusive/bad at sex/have small penises/insert stereotype here. Lovely human beings these people are, but I usually manage to avoid them unless I stumble onto one of those God-forsaken expat message boards.
Anyway. Today at lunch, I'm overhearing a conversation between my male Korean co-teacher and the female school nurse. She asks said co-teacher about learning English in Southeast Asia (a lot of Koreans go to the Philippines to study), and they talk a bit about that, and then co-teacher starts talking about Filipino men, mainly that they are short, dark, and overall just not good-looking. This, he says, is why so many Filipino women are getting married to Korean men, 'cos the men back in the Philippines just don't cut it.*
T_T
So if white guys are out-manning Koreans, and Korean guys are out-manning Filipinos, I wonder what nation's men Filipinos like to brag about besting?
The nurse, by the way, didn't really seem to agree or disagree, I am hoping she just privately recognized what a douchey self-serving comment that was. I never know how to react in these situations, when I can understand the Korean but am nowhere near an ability to muster a snappy response (and perhaps shouldn't even if I could).
Ah, post-colonialism and gender politics. All in a day's work.
*Incidentally, the reason so many marriages are occurring between Korean men and Filipino (as well as Vietnamese, Chinese, Mongolian, and other nations') women is the gender imbalance in Korea, particularly in the countryside. Apologists like to blame Korean women fleeing a rural, domestic life for a career in the city, and that may be part of it; the other part, that no one likes to talk about, is sex-selective abortions in favor of males. Those are mercifully going out of style these days, but for certain generations of men, the lack of marriageable Korean women has meant resorting to importing brides from poorer Asian countries.
Anyway. Today at lunch, I'm overhearing a conversation between my male Korean co-teacher and the female school nurse. She asks said co-teacher about learning English in Southeast Asia (a lot of Koreans go to the Philippines to study), and they talk a bit about that, and then co-teacher starts talking about Filipino men, mainly that they are short, dark, and overall just not good-looking. This, he says, is why so many Filipino women are getting married to Korean men, 'cos the men back in the Philippines just don't cut it.*
T_T
So if white guys are out-manning Koreans, and Korean guys are out-manning Filipinos, I wonder what nation's men Filipinos like to brag about besting?
The nurse, by the way, didn't really seem to agree or disagree, I am hoping she just privately recognized what a douchey self-serving comment that was. I never know how to react in these situations, when I can understand the Korean but am nowhere near an ability to muster a snappy response (and perhaps shouldn't even if I could).
Ah, post-colonialism and gender politics. All in a day's work.
*Incidentally, the reason so many marriages are occurring between Korean men and Filipino (as well as Vietnamese, Chinese, Mongolian, and other nations') women is the gender imbalance in Korea, particularly in the countryside. Apologists like to blame Korean women fleeing a rural, domestic life for a career in the city, and that may be part of it; the other part, that no one likes to talk about, is sex-selective abortions in favor of males. Those are mercifully going out of style these days, but for certain generations of men, the lack of marriageable Korean women has meant resorting to importing brides from poorer Asian countries.