Novelty: Rockstar or Alien

In the elevator on my way to work I was greeted by a group of 5th grade students on their way to yet another hag won (a school that specializes in a subject..math, English, art). As usual they were all standing with their face on the elevator door. Once the elevator door opens they all kinda fall inside. One girl in particular  looked at me with a stare that I've seen a million times before since I've been in Korea....Rock star or Alien and the phrase:

"WHOOAAAA!"

It doesn't bother me when a kid is amazed or surprised about me being black. Kids around the world respond the same way when they live in a homogeneous environment. I use the term environment here because countries like America and Britain are not homogeneous but do have whole neighborhoods that are involuntarily homogeneous.

When I was four years old our neighbor was a family from South Korea. As a child I classified everyone into one of three ethnicity's, black, Mexican (not Latino) and white. You can guess that our neighbors fell into the Mexican category. While we lived there my best friend was the eldest daughter who was about my age. I was in platonic love with her because she played like a boy and baked excellent mud pies with worms on the side.

As a child in the U.S. I had the luxury of putting people in a category albeit not the proper one. Until the age of 6 I couldn't differentiate one Mexican from the other. That same year I befriended a  Mexican kid who wasn't even Mexican. From then on, people became Latino and all Mexicans didn't look alike. I remembered my father had a very peculiar look on his face when I told him of my discovery. As if he were saying "get your shit together kid".

  South Korean school children don't have that luxury. Either they see black people through the spotted lens of the media or not at all. If the kid is into black culture and its art form then we are akin to rock stars. There is also a more frightening side. The look of horror in there eyes when they can't categorize you. Until you entered their world in passing on an elevator, they were completely and utterly Korean.

  Children are allowed to hold these ideas in their minds because hell, they're children. Adults pose a major dilemma. For one, we live in a heavily globalized world and you should have seen a black person somewhere. Honestly it's not the staring that frustrates me, it's the look of disgust and the thoughts that inevitably come with it. You begin to wonder what atrocities has been attributed to you because of your ethnicity.

  It would be unfair if I failed to mention that these types of attitudes exist within Western societies but one can easily disassociate himself from those types of people. In America one can easily come to understand people as individuals. Yet, in Korea one must deal with the burden of language and its inability to communicate properly the attitudes of an individual. Plus we have to remember that a homogeneous society lacks the proper cultural training needed to embrace multiculturalism. Still I wonder is that a reason for someone to stare at me so long that they crash their bicycle?