Enough About Race...for now

Alright, so I was supposed to be writing this blog more so on life in general in Korea, but it seems that I keep having incidents that highlight racial issues and whatnot. Anyway, I'll keep this one short. So, I've been in Seoul for like a year and some now and my korean is still pretty low level (which is a shame:() I actually met a really great guy who worked in my livingtel (it's basically a place where you can rent out a room). We decided to become language exchange partners, which turned out to be a great thing because we could practice every day. Well, we talked about pretty much everything. One day, and I should have known this was coming lol we started talking about black people. This was mainly because he asked me what american tv shows he could watch to improve his english. Some of the ones he listed, I told him that they weren't realistic and that people in the US don't normally talk like that. Somehow, we got into how blacks were portrayed on shows (I'm starting to see a trend). So of course I got into the stereotypes of blacks among other minorities in the states. He was telling that a lot of koreans' idea of black people is the hip hopped out into music type. He said yeah when I first saw you smth smth.. you had your headphones on etc. I kind of laughed because when I met him I did kind of look hip hopped out (but those are my comfy clothes darn it I was searching for a new place) lol and I guess it didn't help that I was a hip hop dance instructor at one point lmao! ( was I perpetuating a stereotype?) Even so, not all black people are like that. Of course I explained, but then I thought wow. The media really does affect peoples' perceptions even half way across the world, especially where what they see of the US is very limited. So it seems that my mission is not complete j/k but low key serious lol