PLN at KIS

Through out my life I realized that I could find relaxation and fun through participating in sports activities and competition. But after the beginning of my project against racism and stereotypes, sports has become more of a source of anger and shame. Several of my past coaches would always tell me that I shouldn’t be afraid of the other team, just because of the fact that they have a different skin color than I do. They would always bring up the stereotype that “Asians suck at sports, and can never beat white or black people in sports.”

To tell you the truth I never believed in any of these athletic based stereotypes as long as I knew that every athlete came from the same species. Definitely past references to sports records and competition might show that Asians haven’t won that many or did well. But it isn’t their fault for having a late start in actually competing in competitions, as most Asian countries still suffer from economic hardships and poverty. Have you ever tried running or kick a ball on an empty stomach? If not, then why don’t you give it a try. I don’t mean to be pessimistic and all but its reality, compared to developed countries, least developed countries have lacked the economical support.

I know what it feels to represent a majority and I’m quite sure that those who represent this majority suffer from a lot of pressure. But that doesn’t lead to the crowd to have the choice of making this single man, woman, or group represent the whole athletic capability of a certain nation. Representation has definitely become an initiating factor for stereotypes and racist insults on certain ethnicities. It has been able to set light on a string of dynamite and as time passes we face a crisis that can no longer be reversed.

Sometimes you just really want to know how the crowd feels about your performance while playing, but for me I just know what they see in me. Another typical “Asian boy” running around trying to act like he’s doing something. Yes I might be biased in some way, but lets face it. The only compliments I’ve heard from the crowd were actually based from the same stereotype that Asian people aren’t good at sports. Compliments such as “you jump pretty high for an Asian”, “Your faster than what I thought you’d be”, and even “Run boy, run like an Asian who’s never ran before.” To tell you the truth I’m totally fine with the taunting around me, but when it goes over a certain line then why do I even try to play this sport.

The crowd that supposedly sitting up high above somewhere out of the athlete’s reach might have some fun enjoying the taunting and the condescending feeling that they get as they have fun with the words that come out of their mouths. Words are like bullets, and I know that it is up to the listener to either let it go or keep it in. But sometimes people just tend to go over the limit. You pay for the game, just let us play. Lets us do our job and you do yours. Just watch and enjoy and please for the love of you know who lets us play with smiles on our faces.

Photo credit to psoup216

Living on a basis of give and take, I find myself somewhat being absorbed by the society’s idea of “freeness” - the idea of giving away free items by will - as well. I’ve always taught and reminded myself that there is no such thing as a free product and that we need to find ourselves working for what we want.

When it comes to sports events, such as conference games I find myself telling my teammates to take everything but then give nothing to them. I mean it doesn’t seem to turn out the way I want it to be, but you get the point. Living on the basis of give and take is the true way for the “survival of the fittest”. But sometimes I wish that people weren’t so selfish and profit focused sometimes.

The world of racism and stereotypes seems to live on this basis of give and take itself. Finding people to talk to is a great start, but then picking people from this giant apple tree I have at hand hasn’t been much of a field trip. I find myself looking but then not working. Then I find myself in situations where I’m giving but then never taking.

As a result I just find myself saying that “oh well I guess this is just how the world goes”. Yes indeed we find many selfish people who just find profit providing targets and take advantage of them, but I know that somewhere out there are a couple of people who know what life means. The whole meaning of my project is to find these special people and learn more about them. But it hasn’t been the smooth stairway to paradise. The give and take of life seems to be more like a stairway to back to where I came from.

I’ve also had some situations where people would look down on me for being a “student” rather than a young adult who wants to make a change in this world. The society itself seems to tell people where they belong in the “neo-social classes” and somehow put students in the bottom. Yes indeed, I might not know a lot about the real world and lack the experiences that adults have, but I know something that you people don’t. This special knowledge that I know of course is based on the fact that “I CAN’T TELL YOU”. Since its something that makes me unique from others and I’m not willing to give it to you in return for something that I want. Since this is the real world and the give and take of life, isn’t it?

Recently I had the chance to take a trip to China, the country of marvelous wonders and cultures. It wasn’t for a vacation or fun, but for an annual international Model United Nations (MUN) conference. The conference was held in Beijing, inviting students from all over the world.

I had the chance to talk with them, become friends with students from London, Vietnam, Mexico, Barcelona and many other place. I also had the chance to actually have short conversations from time to time about how their school life was. Although making new friends plays a major part in our lives, it wasn’t the reason in being there. The conference content was really what caught my interest. It was just amazing how to see students all over the world represent a country that they’ve never lived or even went to, and talk about politics and the environment. We had Asian people representing U.S.A, France, and many other non-Asian nations, then we had the Caucasians representing Japan, Republic of Korea, and many other Asian nations.

The conference overall was successful, but sometimes we seemed to face the problem of certain delegates being insulted by racist and stereotyping comments. A certain stereotype that we faced was from what difference races like to eat, and how “unique” it was. It seemed as if the delegates (students) in the conference were more focused on what a certain country’s eating habits and skin color were rather than the debate itself. But it seemed quite funny though, I mean imagine a Japanese student representing United Kingdom, accusing Japan for eating whales and not protecting them. Then a certain thought struck my head, the thought of hypocrisy, and asked myself “are you a hypocrite?”. Would all anti-racism and anti-stereotype people have the same thought that I do right now? This is probably why I find myself so interested in seeking for a chance to have a conversation with an anti-racist. Not in order to make myself a better man, but to show to the world that some people really mean it when they say that their against racism and stereotypes. Unlike the Korean racist I had a chance to interview, and proved himself wrong as he said that he wasn’t. I want to have a chance where I can find a companion or friend that would join along with me.

This world is definitely filled with hypocrisy. Jonah Goldberg knew how to put the world in the right way by describing it as “Our fear of hypocrisy is forcing us to live in a world where gluttons are fine, so long as they champion gluttony. “. But I know that in some parts of the world there are many people who really value what they are doing.

Photo Credit to blisspix

Recently I stumbled upon the mysterious and amazing mind of Samuel Beckett, and I began to realize that his quotes seemed to resemble a lot of what I was doing for the PLN class. Indeed I’ve tried on new ideas and many failures followed, but after every failure I feel as if I’m learning something.

My previous attempts in making myself open and my project open has been a success, but I haven’t been able to move further. As the days go by I feel as if I’ve just stopped in my steps and currently I’m just facing a huge wall in front of me. But I don’t know what this wall is, and sometimes I really don’t want to know.

I always thought that I faced the challenge of time. Sometimes I couldn’t really find the time to overcome either the time difference I had with the other people around the world or I was more focused on passing my classes rather than doing well in them. But then after my recent attempt on grabbing the Asian world as a focus, I realized that it wasn’t really the lack of time I had, it was just from the lack of confidence. I’ve said that I’ve tried and I’ve failed, but in a better way and learned that things would turn out to be better. But it just feels as if I’m being told not to do things another way, since I have this gut splitting feeling that I would fail again.

Yes indeed Samuel Beckett used to say “Try Again, Fail Again, and Fail Better”, but then Homer Simpson would always say that “Failure always comes from trying”. To tell you the truth I respect both of these people, and it may sound like a joke. But I am serious about the fact that we have a lot to learn from Homer Simpson. He would also be a great man to talk with when it comes to racist and stereotypes, but unfortunately he only exists in an electronic box.

So I guess I can say that I’m stuck with the fact that I haven’t moved on (from just writing), but I guess I just need more time to think to myself, “Is this what you really want?”.

Photo Credit to hometownzero and duncan

The more emphasis we put on the idea of “races” it seems like there is a proportional increase in racism and stereotypes. This idea brings back my previous post on the relationship between education and racism/stereotypes, Education and Stereotypes?.

Is knowledge and learning actually the real criminals to blame? or were we just born with the idea of discriminating people. To me it just seems like a matter of time. Yes I’m talking about the same time, which is a fourth dimensional object, and is probably the most powerful object that ever existed. We all know that humans are the most intellectual species on this planet, and that we develop more and more as time goes by. But this cannot happen with just education and some experiences with reality. So how does this relate to stereotypes and racism? Well if your asking me, I believe that we just don’t have the ability to become a racist or stereotypical person. I mean that no one is “born to be a racist”. We learn that there are different people in this world, we learn that people don’t share the same history, and we learn in many ways that our ethnicity is the best. I might be wrong and please correct me if I am, but this it what I’ve learned from the society and I know that it will go on.

From all this learning I’ve come to one decision for my grade for the work I’ve done in February. I think I deserve a B- at least. I haven’t been able to produce a hard product of what I’m doing so far, but I’ve been able to make more connections with people around the world. I’ve gotten a contact in China now, but all I know about him is that he is a government official who works at a Chinese educational facility in Macao. A great relief is that he speaks English (British English, since he says he learned his English from Hong Kong), which is a great relief to me since I don’t have the capability of speaking Chinese fluently yet. But one of the major problems I faced was from the fact that he doesn’t know Skype or any other web 2.0 skills. So I’m still in the conflict of either moving on to another person who knows how to work with Tech, or actually try teaching him some basic communication skills. I hope to have it soon and I know that I won’t need to worry about the time difference, since there is only a one hour difference. Good Luck to myself and everyone else in the Fight Against Stereotypes and Racism.

Photo Credit to Philgarlic

This week has been a really slow one so far, and I feel like I’ve been working for a couple of months at least. Compared to these “couple of months” I feel like I haven’t really accomplished much.

The truth is its been only a couple of weeks and I’m still working on contacts, which I feel like I need more time on as well. I’ve just started to work in the bigger world, called facebook, and I’ve found several groups and their administrators that I hope to get in contact with (to find out how serious they were about racism). Like the STOP RACISM! group, which seemed to be one of the biggest Anti-racism groups on facebook.

I’ve also succeeded in progressing my contact with other people, mainly those who have had a career in studying cultural anthropology and many other racism/ stereotype related majors. Everything seemed to go smooth with these people, except for the time difference problem. All the people that I’ve been in contact with have jobs, and I also have school. Then considering the 12~15 hour difference I had with these people made a great problem for me, especially when I wanted to schedule conferences and interviews.

But I hope to get one conference conversation that I’ve been working on for this week on this weekend, and have it as a hard product by next week. Good Luck to me and everyone else.

Just another day of research. It started out with really smooth today and everything was working out the way I wanted it to. I started off by fixing my previous blog post (the interview with a Korean Racist).

Then I moved on into my first voicethread project. I was shocked at the comments that were left on the project. This one guy was being such a pain in the … by writing and drawing comments about Asians and dropping bombs on them. I just wanted to put that guy in front of me and just punch him. But then I changed my mine. Yes I knew that this was reality. I had to face it.

My last task that I achieved today was facebook. But I didn’t goof off. I finally chose to take Mr. Burell’s advice and chose to look at facebook. I was amazed. Millions and millions of people were writing and advertising anti-racist campaigns. I chose to take advantage of this and started to write to the administrators of the groups. Well thats about it, I just hope to build up from here.

Over the weekend I [was capable of having] my first successful interview, but I’m so depressed by the fact that I couldn’t put it on audio. [Then there’s the fact that] I can blame nobody but myself. I wasn’t prepared for it and I didn’t feel confident in having such a great interview. Since my previous attempts in having an interview with a minority was such a mess and failure I guess I gave up in putting in that extra work. Well I was amazed at how the interview went, and it was really something I wanted. I interviewed a 38 year old man, who wanted to go by the name of Mr. Lee. He was an oriental doctor, who spent his whole life living in Korea, and he had a small family of three.The interview went pretty smooth at the beginning and was based on my first voicethread project, but got really extreme and intense at the end. It was in Korean only, since he couldn’t speak fluent English. So here’s a translated version of the interview:

Q. Do you know what Racism (Injong-Chabyul) and Stereotypes (Pyunkyun) are?

A. Yes, of course I know the definition to both.

Q. Could you tell me what they are then?

A. Both mean the same thing to me. These words basically talk about a certain way we judge people in insulting ways, especially those with different skin colors. But if these words were meant to have different meanings, I guess racism would be based on people with different skin colors and stereotypes would be based on people from different regions of the world. So in a sense racism would be used to attack more people.

Q. Do you take yourself as a stereotyping or racist kind of guy?

A. No, definitely not. I respect other people, especially those that come from different parts of the world (different skin colors).

Q. So your saying that you don’t have any experience of being a racist or stereotypical?

A. Maybe a few times, but that doesn’t make me a racist. I mean it was during a period where other people where being racist too.

Q. A time where other people where being racist too? Could you be more specific about it?

A. Well it was a couple years ago, you know when those two middle schoolers were run over by an American tank. Then there was the time when the President of USA declared war on Iraq. This was when I probably started to have the most racist and stereotyping views in my life. I mean who do these white people think they are, the law? or even god? Their just some selfish, fat, big nosed bastards to me. I mean they can’t even solve easy math problems, and they think we’re so stupid. Well think again.

Q. Why have you suddenly changed your point of view from specific people to a whole ethnicity?

A. Because their all the same.

Q. You know your being really stereotypical right now, based on what you defined as racism and stereotypes?

A. No, its the truth. White people aren’t like us, they are arrogant, fat, big-nosed, and just plain old stupid. Its been proven!

Before moving on I would first like to apologize to the people that might this conversation offensive, but the truth was that this guy was speaking words without any thought. I was just amazed after talking to him, but then I was really proud of myself as well. Since this guy could easily talk and define racism and stereotypes in simple words, but he couldn’t realize that he was being stereotypical and racist (the type of people who make perfect interviews). He also had a mind set that when other people do it, its okay for him to do it.

After this interview I realized that there would always colors in this world as long as we had racist and stereotyping ideas. But was it possible for us to fix these ideas or get rid of them? Was being a racist and stereotyping something that we were born with?

Working with people is a very difficult task, and I know this is true by both fact and through experiences. Through the PLN class I have learned that it makes things a little easier but still at a difficult level. I’ve always had some trouble dealing with technology or new computer skills (especially when your computer just starts letting out smoke and breaks down). But after getting use to the idea of working and connecting with people would actually benefit me and using other convenient tools such as Twitter, things seemed to work out.

My project in particular required the connections with other people and through these connections I would gain what I needed to proceed. But it hasn’t really been the smooth road for me. To tell you the truth I know that over half of the people I’ve connected with so far, were just people that Mr. Burell connected me with. It definitely feels like I haven’t done much, and just let the “older” people do it for me. Well I guess it time to take control over again. But it doesn’t mean that they weren’t helpful, I’ve been learning from these “experienced” people that the world is just something more than whats just around me. I feel as if I were moving out into the open, from a small and isolated personal area.

During the lunar break I have connected with several people, who have jobs as journalists, professors, and minority teenager. Hoping that I’ll be able to move on from here, not only through words but also with the assistance of visual and audio tools as well.

My first goal is getting a successful interview. My previous attempt with local minorities hasn’t been at the level I want it to be. These people I’ve tried interviewing were either in the “pure” state in which they were never the minority before they came to Korea or they just couldn’t understand what other people around them were saying.

So I’ve changed my aim for now. I’ve chosen to take on the side of the majority, something that is definitely new to this world, or at least the world around me. Asking them about how it feels to be the majority, how they feel about Stereotypes and Racism (SAR), and their own experiences. Although I know that its going to be quite difficult due to the language barriers, considering that the audience (the world) speaks mainly English rather than Korean. But I’ll try and I just hope it works.

Photo Credit to Laughing Squid

Its been 3 weeks ever since I started the project, Fight Against Stereotypes and Racism (FASAR).

As we approach lunar break, which starts in 3 minutes, I had this feeling that I was starting to slack off. Senioritis! Well I mean I’ve been trying to get some more contacts and I’ve started my own blog for Racism and Stereotypes, link will be posted, once I’ve got stuff to show. But I’m still having the technical difficulty in which I have to borrow a Mac every class to use it during class and I only have a PC at home. So it always been quite difficult for me to talk to other people and do my stuff at the same time.

But I’ve made some contracts with several people, who seemed to be interested in Korea, specifically its education. So through the give and take method I’ve learned new technologies, skills, and many other things, while giving others what I know from Korean education.

I hope to do something over the lunar break……yes…..hope….