One of the things that I feared the most was having my Blackness interfere with my experience studying abroad. Upon choosing South Korea as my host country, I was already under the impression that the experiences of Black people varied; some loved it stating that they felt safe while others expressed experiencing microaggressions and being held to fit the typical stereotypes about Black people. Even though I was scared of experiencing any form of racism, my desire to travel and learn about new cultures was stronger than using my race as a factor to dedicate the host country I choose.
Thus, due to my extensive research, which I did through YouTube but mainly Tiktok, I was able to get a feel of the experiences of Black women living, visiting, and studying abroad in South Korea. In this blog, I am specifically referring to my experience, so this may or may not be the universal experience for every Black woman visiting Korea. Unfortunately in my home country, America, citizens are being killed for being a minority including the lack of gun control laws ; take the Black Lives and Asian Lives Matter movements as examples.
However, I do think that a level of racism exists within South Korea. Though it's important for me to point out that it's a level of racism that doesn't impose physical danger or threaten your existence. It's more on the surface level of racism; subtle microaggressions and stereotypes. From my understanding, South Koreans develop their perceptions, and knowledge about the Black community through the media, which historically portrays Black Americans in a negative light; Black Americans are mostly represented as thugs, gang members, poor, dangerous, threatening, athletes, dancers, cooks, etc.
Thus, American media plays a huge role in South Korea's understanding of the Black community, thus they mostly understand Black Americans through that limited and harmful lens. But I will say that I don't feel like I have experienced racism here. Though, I have had a few instances where people touched my hair without permission, which was very shocking and a bit uncomfortable.
Even though it was out of curiosity, it still felt unusual for a stranger to touch my hair without asking. I did have a few people ask whether it was real or not, asked to take pictures of me, and there was one lady who suddenly sat next to me and asked to touch my hair. In addition to the fascination with my hair, I am still getting used to the hyper-visibility of being a Black woman in South Korea.
