Mixed-blood fighter

No, it's not the title of a new novel. Harry Potter fans could easily think it may fit as the title of JK Rowling's seventh novel considering her latest work, Harry Potter and Half-blood Prince. However, it's actually something happening in South Korea.

What caught my attention in today's Naver News was, so called 'Photo Quiz'. Naver News is one of two leading portal news sites in Korea. (The other is Media Daum.) The news service has been my favorite Korean news source but I get increasingly irritated by its yellow journalism these days. There are many reasons that I loathe the site and the screenshot above can be one of the reasons. (There might be an opportunity to explain in the future why I don't like Naver News and the whole Naver .)

This photo quiz thing is a quiz on the news articles of the site. Today David Kang was the object of the quiz. You may guess easily who's David Kang because he's the only male figure in this screenshot. The hangul (Korean writing) text is demanding:

"Who's the mixed-blood fighter having achieved three consecutive wins in Pride Musado?"

(Pride Musado may be one of K-1 fighting championship i guess.) The bluntness of using the word 'mixed-blood' to describe a person made me taken aback. Connecting "Mixed-blood" with "fighter" had especially some dramatic effect. Saying 'Who's the fighter having achieved three consecutive wins in Pride Musado?" must have been able to convey the meaning perfectly. There are not many people who achieved such things lately and the photo was kindly there to enlighten people. Saying "Who's the Korean-Canadian fighter…." could be better than that, if the author really wanted to make clear his "mixedness". (As fas as I know, he was born between Korean father and Canadian mother.)

The first reason that such wording should not be employed in a well-known public site like Naver News is that the use of the word implies segregation. Described as such, David Kang is already a somewhat different peron from others. It sets apart mixed-blood people from "pure blood people" or ordinary people.

Secondly using of the word doesn't have any significance or meaning. Mixed-blood means that the person was born between (radically) different blood lines. It is widely known that saying pure and mixed blood has gone with Hitler in the early 20th century. What on earth, who are pure blood and others are mixed blood? The author of the quiz may be Mongolian-Japanese-Chinese Korean if we apply his/her notion.

Thirdly, the word can hurt feelings of the people who are often described as such. Even in multi-ethnic countries where there are a lot of mixed blood people, the word is used carefully if not avoided at all. I haven't heard things like 'mixed blood golfer Tiger Woods' or 'mixed blood singer Mariah Carey'. Such words are downright unnecessary as explained above and it is also avoided not to offend these people. Mixed-blood is not a 100% pleasant word anywhere and it was never a good word in Korea where these people still suffer discrimination.

To put it bluntly, most Koreans see only black haired and yellow skinned people in their daily lives. Even in a mega city like Seoul with ten million people, you can go on without seeing other ethnicities for days. Korea is an exceptionally homegeneous country. Many think East Asiatic features are the only possible human form subconsciously although they know different "kinds" of people through media and overseas travel. Lack of experience must be the biggest factor of such misunderstanding. But it is clear that unthoughtful remarks such as "mixed-blood fighter" become increasingly intolerable when Korea pursues the goal of "hub of East Asia" or "global economy".

Realted article on mixed-blood people in Korea (Korean): The article is saying the school text books emphasizing pure-blood tradition of Korea(單一民族) are the main culprits behind the discrimination against mixed-blood people.