Angry Koreans? Hah!
Over the last couple of days, I have seen a lot of Koreans get very angry at Chris Rock’s Oscar joke. Child labor is not funny, they rage. Not all Asians are good at math, they say (and seeing some of my cousins, I know that is definitely true.) As the furor kept getting louder and louder, it got me very self-conscious: did it make me a bad Asian that I actually chuckled at that gag?
As society has turned more into an outrage society where we express our displeasure in all caps on Twitter and Facebook and nuance is just another four-letter word, I decided I would only get outraged about real things. You know, that it wasn’t until the last decade that us Hapas were given equal rights in Korea. That I speak only in English in Koreatown to get better service than if I spoke Korean. That my entire time growing up at a Korean church it was made very clear to me that I did not belong.
So yeah. I found it very delicious that some Koreans got mad.