Being a Black Woman in South Korea

Moving abroad to another country is a big step for anyone and requires an initial investment in courage that some may not be willing to do.  I know for myself I constantly went back and forth on the decision of picking up my life and moving abroad.  However, I have always been quite an adventurous person and ready to jump at the opportunity to settle in unknown locations.  I even went to college in a state that was hundreds of miles away from my home and would have gone farther if I could.   Because of this, my own experience and interest overrode my initial hesitations towards moving to South Korea and I decided to take a huge leap of faith to follow my intuition.  Even though I was ready to take on this challenge, there was always a concern that mostly remained idle in the back of my mind: what kind of racism will I have to deal with? What kind of sexism will I have to deal with? These are questions that every black woman has when venturing out anywhere in the world. We know that it will exist in one form or another, but how will it look and am I mentally prepared to work through it?

 Years before even considering moving to South Korea I wasn’t very familiar with the culture or how foreigners were treated here.  As such, when I made the final decision to make the move to live abroad in South Korea, I scoured the Internet for any and all information that related to being a black woman in South Korea.  In my research, there was one general theme that remained constant throughout; the experience will indeed be different but it will not be anything I am not somewhat already accustomed to.  For example, I would come across many black women mentioning that their hair would be a constant point of interest for Koreans.  Some women even experienced Koreans forcibly touching their hair without their permission.  Even though this treatment is definitely an invasion of personal space, I myself personally was not a stranger to treatment like this in the US.  While working at my first job out of college in Wisconsin a coworker came up to me and touched my hair before I had the option of declining her advance.  In fact, the more I read the various experiences of black women in South Korea, the more that I realized that I had came across very similar or sometimes more shocking experiences in my home state of Wisconsin! Coming to this revelation allowed me to remain confident in my decision of moving to South Korea because if I could get through the traumatizing experiences of growing up in the most segregated city in the United States, I feel that I have the spiritual and mental fortitude to withstand any uncomfortable experiences I may have abroad.

Now that I have lived in South Korea for over a year, I can now say that living here as a black woman has not yet challenged me in ways that I had not expected or has caused me to question my decision of moving to South Korea.  Of course I have had experiences that were based on my being, but those were all things that were expected.  For example, my 3rd graders love comparing me to any melanated person, male or female, on the screen in the classroom.  I remember my students within the same day comparing me to both a male and female on screen that all had different amounts of melanin in their skin. Our shared skin was the only resemblance that the children could notice.  I also have some Koreans inquire about my hair, and not surprisingly I had the question on how to twerk while I was studying Korean with a study group.  Of course all of this was, for lack of a better word dumb, those were all experiences that didn’t challenge me beyond a point that I was challenged back in America.  So far, I haven’t had experiences that were unexpectedly racist.  In fact, I live very much a comfortable life here in South Korea.  From the perspective of Koreans, everyone who is not Korean is considered to be a foreigner and we are generally placed in one group.  I think that as a foreigner in general we all have to deal with similar instances such a being stared at in public by primarily older Koreans, feeling somewhat ostracized from a society at times, and struggling through the language barrier to finish every day activities.  In fact, these foreigner issues have been the most bothersome for me as it can be somewhat wearing to experience daily.  However, at the end of the day I try to place things in perspective and understand that I am in a foreign country and people that look like me aren’t usually walking around the streets of Daegu.  It is what it is, and to protect my energy I love to go to my one-room apartment and listen to music, meditate, and do other things that recharge my spirit. 

Ultimately, as I have gotten older my mind state is one of self-certainty and growth.  I refuse to let the fear of the unknown or the annoyance of racism stop me from the goals that I must accomplish in life.  I walk proudly as a beautiful creation of my creator, and I find so much peace and happiness in that.  Nothing can shake that. And as I know who I am and am pushing myself everyday to understand more, I hope that any black woman looking to move abroad to South Korea focuses on internal growth and acceptance rather than external displays of such.  If you focus on spiritual fortitude, any petty acts of ignorance that may occur in South Korea won’t make you crumble.

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