Tiger JK: “There Was a Strange Kind of Prejudice in France”

[frantastic.livejournal.com]

Tiger JK recently commented on his interesting experiences while performing at a festival in France! Tiger JK recently appeared at the March 18 broadcast of YTN’s “News 12 – Issue and People.” MFBTY (Tiger JK, Yoon Mirae, and Bizzy) performed at the “K-Pop Night Out at MIDEM 2013” on January 27 in France.

Tiger JK stated, “The world music festival was held at the same place as the Cannes International Film Festival. We (MFBTY) were chosen to represent South Korea. Although we were very nervous, it ended well. It was neat because afterwards we became more well-known.”

He continued, “ There was a weird kind of discrimination. It was not really racial discrimination but there was a lot of prejudice about Asians. It was hard for us to pursue our activities. Although we went to represent South Korea, they treated Asians as if they were invisible. We had no presence and we had no expectations because of that.”

He continued, “It was our stage and we even took our own press. However, they did not think of us as artists. There was a happening where we could not even get into our own performance. In the end we did get on stage, and it was a historic moment where for the first time as an Asian a lot of people danced and sung together.”
Tiger JK ended with, “After the performance, we were walking on the street and people recognized us, it felt great. After our performance, a lot of people liked us more.”

source: soompi

should I add the cultural insensitivity/racism tag?

Comments

[iznanassi.livejournal.com]

Um the french hate everyone don't think it's just you Tiger :/

[ceecile.livejournal.com]

Please

[ceecile.livejournal.com]

You should have posted his tweets has well, since he called out the way the article was written.
It truly sucks that they went through this.
I do appreciate what he said on twitter though. Lord knows there are racists and ignorant fools in France, but let's call the entire nation racist, thanks.
I love him, I wish I could have gone but I was working :C

[hongaerin.livejournal.com]

Yep, just because there are some racists and ignorant fools, just like everywhere else in the world, doesn't mean our whole nation is racist.

At the time he was in Cannes, I read some things on Twitter posted by fans who were there and cheered on him. They really wanted to prove that he had a lot of fans here as well, and I'm happy he mentioned these people in his tweets :)

[frantastic.livejournal.com]

the article & title were edited by soompi prior posting it at omona though

[flumes.livejournal.com]

get over it

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

When people say "x-country is racist" they mean that country has a lot of racists and racial issues unresolved, which is true of France. You should be more upset that this is still happening in France than the fact that it was called out.

[ceecile.livejournal.com]

.. I am more upset about that.. I am half asian/half arab myself, I know all about how racist and prejudiced France can be, thanks.
I know that's what they mean, I just dislike generalization like that. Especially about race when this is a serious issue that happens everywhere, what's the point of saying "x country is racist" when in reality x could be any country. Let's just call out the country for their racism to show we acknowledge it and call it a day.
I was only mentioning it because he did in his tweets.
Anyway I know a healthy discussion about race issues other than "white people sucks" "they're all racist" is pointless.

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

I didn't say you haven't experienced racism yourself. Saying "x-country is racist" is important so people in that country can say "oh, that's not good, what can I do to change this." It's also important because racial issues change from country to country.

Why is having a healthy discussion about race impossible? That's what we're trying to do in this post.

[hongaerin.livejournal.com]

He wrote something about it on Twitter saying the Soompi article was misleading and that not everyone acted like that around him, but just a bunch of idiots.

https://twitter.com/DrunkenTigerJK

[frantastic.livejournal.com]

title & article were edited already by soompi before I posted it here

[stephantasm.livejournal.com]

eergh

[stephantasm.livejournal.com]

~we're not all racist~

lol

ok

[asnindie.livejournal.com]

Wasn't it because they're nugu, he stated that after the event people were more responsive towards them. Idk, can anyone explain this better?

[4minutesluts.livejournal.com]

it feels more to me like they assumed that they weren't a music act because they were asian or something

[jjoeyjjang.livejournal.com]

He's always pulling the "we get discriminated/made fun of because we're Asian" card.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

He's probably right here

[jjoeyjjang.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, but he's always complaining about something so I'm over it.

[uledy.livejournal.com]

wow, ok.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

The "asian nerd" stereotype is very much alive in France.
They were probably not taken seriously at first because they are asians and asians are not "supposed" to be artist and when they are they're "meant" to stick to action movie and "fat chinese guy doing funny stuff"

Not to mention that Cannes is a very snobbish city

[asnindie.livejournal.com]

yeah it happens in the UK too. There's a pretty sizable South Asian population and Indian musicians aren't really taken seriously at all. i remember going to a open air concert where the asian acts had bottles thrown at them, though they were being thrown by fellow asians.

[4minutesluts.livejournal.com]

lol are you sure they weren't just shit

[flumes.livejournal.com]

France is racist get over it sry

[uledy.livejournal.com]

I can't believe people were actually getting upset because they thought JK said France was racist. So what?

Anyway, I always love JK real talk time. It seems as though he and other Korean artists have encountered this type treatment before and it has to be really demoralizing, but props to him and everyone else for persevering. It seemed that he had some positive experiences in France, which is great.

Hopefully MFBTY comes to NYC. We wouldn't treat you that way ^^;

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

"It seems as though he and other Korean artists have encountered this type treatment before"

Gangnam style honestly made it worst, at least in France, it's not PSY's fault obviously but it's sadly a consequance of his success
A lot of french people already have this stupid idea that real music can only be french/american/british and that asian are those IT people that can't sing/dance unless it's funny
So after the gangnam style wave people started thinking "well this is true, asian music is a joke" and would not take any asian artist seriously

We also had a lot of interview, TV show about how "boysband" and "girlsband" are for little child
So basically A-music is either a joke or a craze that won't last
I think people are afraid to call it music

[sunshine2163.livejournal.com]

if he would have said America was racist, then no one would have had aproblem.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

He's not lying
Sadly is not only about asian musicians it's about any musicians whom is not french/british or american
People have this weird conception that other country only produce "funny/joke" music and not actual/real music
It's ridiculous, especially when our contribution to music is Matt Pokora

There's also this old prejudice about how asians are only good at making technology
The exception are chinese cinema (only chinese, until you remind them "hey old boy/JSA/... they're all korean)
And Japanese anime/manga

[ceecile.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Asians are pretty much non-existent in people's mind here. We're all Asians. Nevermind Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc.. We have nice phones, Bruce Lee and Naruto.

[bulleusekat.livejournal.com]

Dying at Matt Pokora. However it's M Pokora now D: (yeah whatev haha). No seriously I still don't understand why and how he's "so" famous.

Sometimes I'm still surprised to see so many solid and old stereotypes on Asians in France and I can't help to facepalm several times but it's worse when I have to "educate" my friends.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

Same
stereotypes are hard to kill

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

I just love the use of "putain" everywhere in his tweet XD

Idk what to think about this

[asth77.livejournal.com]

lmao at "putain" in his tweets

[laikiia.livejournal.com]

He is not lying tho

[gathyou.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that he decided to talk about that. We do have issues with discrimination in France, and some weird stigmas around Asian (I'm sure there are much people that don't consider Asian being musicians at all). It's really difficult to talk about this, since "race" or "ethnic" notions are completely banned (especially in statistics) so that an ethnic group can't be stigmatized and French integration would look successful. Yet, it is not the case, it's difficult to talk about the matter (and even have quantitative information) and we have an extreme-right party which uses discrimination in its speeches. So, yeah, I'm not surprised that he had to face some idiots.
However, and I'm talking to some people in the comments, it's not all France. There are also open-minded people, etc...

[bulleusekat.livejournal.com]

He is not wrong tho I can totally imagine this happening. Asian people represent a silent minority. There are no agressive racist behaviours towards them but they are definitely victims of stereotypes.
As pointed out by the previous comments, it's kinda taboo to describe openly races and ethnicities in France and Cannes' region is known to have extreme-right tendencies.

Tbh I don't think it's only in France because MIDEM is an international event so...

[asth77.livejournal.com]

"There are no agressive racist behaviours towards them but they are definitely victims of stereotypes."


hum yes there definitely are agressive racist behavious towards them.

[bulleusekat.livejournal.com]

What I meant by aggressive is that it's (most of the time) not actively racist, not a minority openly persecuted or denigrated as much as other minorities (which doesn't make it acceptable I know).
Asians are too socially and politically silent in France to be persecuted and they have the most relatively "positive" social stereotypes compared to other minorities.
I see what's wrong in my previous comment and I have to admit that in the entertainment industry, Asians are definitely ignored most of the time; which constitutes an aggressive racist behavior.

[asth77.livejournal.com]

What I meant by my comment, is that I actually watched a documentary made by TF1 something like 2 years ago about the chinese population in Paris who was more and more victim of physical agressive attacks (a young guy said that someone broke his arm just because he's chinese).
I actually think that the discrimination against asian poeple is extremely agressive in France, but it just takes another form than toward black or arabian poeple.
Not long ago, my japanese teacher talked about her 10 years experience in France. You should have seen her face & her eyes. & How she constantly had to deal with so much discrimination every day, whether it comes from the bank or the poeple.
I still get your point though.
I just need an elaboration about what you percieve as "agressive", and some statistic comparisons of discrimination towards different ethnic groups.

[bulleusekat.livejournal.com]

I was only talking about my personal experience. I am French and have Chinese origins. My family and I have fortunately never faced this kind of physical violence.
I see your point and it's true I can't talk on behalf of all Asians for sure.

[jjoeyjjang.livejournal.com]

It's always something with this MF, I'm gonna need for him to have several seats.

[the-hedfones.livejournal.com]

lol @ everyone complaining about him calling out racism.

you apologists are so cute.

instead of bawing about "omg stop generalizing a whole country", why don't you actually assess the problem at hand and try to fix it? this should be a signal to actually try to eradicate racism in france.

when you're a person of color, you have every fucking right to complain. from macroaggressions to microaggressions, they get under your skin and twitter and other social networking sites are great ways to let loose of that. if you're a poc and you don't wanna complain about racism, fine but stay in your lane and stop trying to silence others because you think that pinpointing a whole country being racist is actually worse than the racism that happens in there.

[gigabytexx.livejournal.com]

What is 'person of color' actually? It's like saying, everyone is poc. Isn't white is a color too?

[mintycupcake.livejournal.com]

semantics

[monster-mutt.livejournal.com]

good luck with that. the french are, as a general rule, very prejudiced about EVERYONE. just look at their recent history with muslims, hello.

[mjspice.livejournal.com]

That's just sad. Discrimination is still thriving everywhere. :/

[yingmoon26.livejournal.com]

I don't live in France but I live in the French province in Canada and LOL French people are pretty nationalist...including non-French people who are Francophone. It's not entirely racism for us here (though that also exists) but ya a general prejudice does exist.

This doesn't just fall under ethnicity or skintone. We're having issues with the whole English VS French thing too :/

[monster-mutt.livejournal.com]

Um, if they showed up to a random free concert in the US near, say, SXSW, they would experience the same type of treatment, if not worse.

[sisterjune.livejournal.com]

nice derailing there. tiger jk has complained about racism he experienced in the US many times dont you worry. and depending on the area in the US he went to the reception might be better or worse. plenty of areas have high asian populations and he's said before the worst crap he's gotten is from white people. and france is very nationalist and has a huge amount of racism issues. anyone who has access to international news sites or radio programs, and also you know a book would know this. so idk what you're even trying to say here. the US has racism issues, we know that, this post isnt about the US.