I spent two years teaching in Korea, I can say it was the best and worst of times, there is an acceptable amount of curiosity, ignorance and lack of knowledge that makes some of the staring and touching bearable, but then there is a concept of their own cultural respect that makes one question, if it is impolite to stare another Korean in the face, why is it acceptable to stare a person of color in the face?

I wasn't in Korea more than a few months, when the facebooks groups of POC in Korea begin to blow up, a popular Korean television show, had an sketch or an appearance by a guest in black face. How is this an acceptable practice, why was a network television show ok with mocking the image of a race/ culture of people by placing one of their own in a mocked image inclusive of a natty wig?

I can find countless articles referencing these cases

https://www.dramafever.com/news/international-fans-petition-to-end-the-use-of-blackface-on-korean-television/%7B%5B%7Bnotification.object.url%7D%5D%7D (2014)
http://jezebel.com/5889705/omg-wtf-is-up-with-k-pop--blackface (2012)
http://shashalaperf.blogspot.com/2011/07/short-look-at-blackface-in-japan.html (2011)

Friends of mine have even worked in settings where on Halloween workers have dressed in this replicated style.

But as the black face begins to phase, blatant dislike of dark skin allows for the outward mockery of a people through such ads as the one done recently in China where a black man comes on to a woman and she throws him in a washing machine to get him clean and Chinese. As is available to view in the attached site.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/05/27/china-and-india-have-a-huge-problem-with-racism-toward-black-people/

Part of the reason I stayed a second year was to bring a positive light and view to a people, culture most Korean only cross paths with because of their interactions with military persons and depending on their view of having the military imposed upon their homeland, can deter their opinion, but then again it makes me question how you can believe that racism is ok, when a number of the men and women serving to protect you, warranted or not, are the same people you are mocking and disrespecting on television.

I believe much of this mockery comes from western images and portrayal of people of color, and is more disheartening because especially here in the United States, Asians are also looked upon as a minority group, often have the same struggles and is and I find, we possible have more commonalities than not.