There is a man who is a pretty high up partner at my company--he is Korean. He met a new hire (this was at the airport, we had to travel to be on site for something vs doing zoom) and we were there for a long time due to weather delays. I can't remember the exact words he used but he ended up somehow asking for trying to guess what ethnicity the new hire was (he was also Asian) and it came out that he was Chinese. The partner said "Oh good. Glad you aren't Japanese!"I thought it was so so weird at the time but I didn't get it. Then I thought it might be just something I don't get because I am not Asian (I am middle eastern and there are all sorts of weird things we might say that other people would bristle at). I asked my Chinese friend about it and she told me that Koreans hate Japanese people. I researched that a bit and there are definitely anti-Japense sentiments amongst a large portion of Korean people. This partner has a tendency to say offensive things about people (not necessarily with a racial/ethnic lense though). Would you say anything to anyone? I ended up talking to a peer about it and she told me she once saw him ask a Chinese person his last name and then reply "good" when it was a Chinese one, so this is a pattern.
People need to stop judging others by their ethnicity and national origin. Argentinians hating on Brazilians, Germans hating on Austrians, Americans hating on Russians, and apparently your co-worker has an issue here too.
Not disagreeing with you, but I think Argentinians hating Brazilians and Germans hating Austrians (to the extent true at all) are not quite the same as Koreans hating Japanese.
I would guess that the comment sprang at least in part from the centuries-old geopolitical tension between the two countries. As just one example something that may motivate the animus for some people, there have been many articles about Japan's treatment of Korea in WWII, including the sexual enslavement of Korean women (and of women from other countries, including China). Read up about "comfort women" who were forced to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers; as recently as last month there was a ruling in a case that some of them brought in Korea: https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/south-koreas-dubious-comfort-women-ruling/. Bottom line, the relationship between those particular countries and cultures is complex. It may be true that the comment was offensive, but there also may be more to it than abstract racial or ethnic prejudice.
The Chinese hate the Japanese because of their history. Korenas hate Japanese because of violence during the war. Koreans hate everyone and think they are superior to both Chinese and Japanese. Japanese are quieter but I suspect think they are superior to the Chinese. What to do? Nothing. Don’t even think about it again. Long history of violence and abuse between those countries.
Europeans hate the French. Irish people hate the English. It’s not racism as much as prejudice. it sounds like you were all bored and passing the time vs the partner was being intentionally mean spirited or inappropriate
@Anonymous I think everyone should reevaluate how they’re talking to and evaluate people based on national
origin or race. It’s plain wrong to look down on anyone based on where they come from. Also, it’s not cute or funny to act on some perceived rivalry between countries.
@Anonymous I hear you, and of course it's wrong, but but some of this is not people trying to be cute or funny or pushing a "perceived rivalry". Some of this is centuries-long, deeply ingrained, cross generational prejudice and bias.
@Anonymous I agree. I’m aware of these stereotypes because I’m from a small country. When people say something about my heritage ill tell them if they’re being racist. But a lot of the time they’re trying to be Warm or funny. The intention of their comments matters to me
If you're friends with the Korean man, you could mention that his biased comments about Asians (i.e. animosity towards the Japanese) may be perceived as discrimination and are not appropriate in the workplace. Or, if you wanted to make it a workplace issue, you could file a bias report to HR -- this would escalate the issue obviously. Someone will eventually report him person to HR.
Are you his friend, peer (i.e., also a partner), or senior to him? If so, then I would tell him, I know there is a TON of bad blood between the Koreans and the Japanese, but comments like that -- where you are basically deciding you don't like someone strictly on the basis of their ethnicity -- are illegal and could end up being a huge discrimination issue, so please be mindful about saying that type of thing out loud vs. evaluating someone on their merits as an individual. If you are NOT this person's peer or better, then it's likely not going to work out well for you if you try to school him, and I would handle in a much less heavy handed way, by saying something like (the next time he does this): I know you totally *meant* to say you'll evaluate all of your team members on the basis of their merit and not their ethnicity, John :) And then leave it at that.
What is there to handle? You're not Japanese, nobody there was Japanese, so why make something out of it? Move on.
@ Anonymous right ? let it go, unless you’d like to be sidelined and lose your job while you are at it.
Right. Because unless a member of the offended group is present, you should always look the other way and keep quiet when someone is blatantly breaking the law and expressing hostility towards a racial minority.
So gross that people think and behave this way and only do the right thing when someone is there to notice, if at all.
I wish more people had civil courage like you do. The kind of crap I’ve been subjected to is not funny either. I wish someone had stood up for me just once.