Almost Right

The Joongang Ilbo (among others)  writes about discontented foreigners, but disappoints by limiting itself to the financial issues faced by a limited cross-section of foreigners: 

Let’s think about what it will be like if they return to their mother countries with mistrust and hate in their hearts. It will have a boomerang effect on Korean businessmen and students who are abroad. In this globalizing world, must we cut ourselves off through this exclusive attitude?  [link]

Yes, and  this recognition is a step in the right direction,  but the papers that are picking up this story forget that  the same happens at a much faster rate with U.S. military personnel, particulary the 97% who are behaving like soldiers.  What I often sense about Korea’s flashes of social introspection is that they don’t account for the soldier’s view, perhaps because the U.S. military presence is now so laden with political baggage, but just as possibly out of some Rangelian assumption that soldiers are persons of low social status, meaning they can be mistreated without fear of consequence.  The same could just as well apply to a laborer from Bangladesh who is mistreated at work or  cheated out of his wages.  

It is defensible — though obviously  self-defeating —  to respond to an expat’s complaints about the difficulty of  getting a credit card by saying, “Then go somewhere else.”  I’m sure plenty  have done just that, and many Koreans can see that this bears a cost in global connectivity.  But that’s the wrong answer to give to a soldier who never wanted to be assigned to Korea, and who then  comes face-to-face with this.  Believe me:  that bears a cost, too.