Koreans Comprise the World’s Largest Diaspora, say Koreans.

Okay, well not all Koreans say this. But the most venerable Korea Joong Ang Daily did indeed proudly report yesterday (in the first installment of what shall surely be a grippingly informative four-part series) that the ‘World’s widest diaspora [was] born over 100 years ago’!!!

We understand this to be true because:

A) It was in the newspaper.

B) Accompanying the article is a nice graphic showing how Koreans have spread across the world more than any other ethnic group… many are even in the oceans, presumably bobbing about happily.

C) And, most comfortingly of all… as the Joongang Ilbo confirms, ‘Kim Bong-seop, a senior researcher at the Overseas Koreans Foundation, has done the numbers to prove it’.

Well there you have it folks. Actually, I was going to rant on about how ridiculous everything in the article is, but I just don’t have the strength for it today, so here’s just a bit.

The 7.26 million Koreans who comprise the world’s widest diaspora apparently consist of every ethnic Korean person anywhere (including fifth-generation Russian writer Mikhail Park and successful Kazakh businessman Edward Kim, whose inspirational biographies took up six paragraphs). The Korean diaspora remains wider (by countries of habitation) than even those of Chinese descent. Apparently (and remember, the Overseas Koreans Foundation has done the numbers to prove it), there are approximately 45 countries – the article does not name them – in which Koreans live where there is not a single person of Chinese ethnicity.

Yeah, that’s enough of that. This whole article is just fucked up. If anyone out there can make any sense at all of it, please let me know…

Now, just to be clear (I don’t want the world’s widest diaspora coming after me), I’m not just being a spiteful anti-Korean here. I’m dumbfounded though by the incessant stream of garbage perpetuated by the mainstream Korean press. For the life of me I just don’t get it. Perhaps I just got lucky, but the majority of my Korean friends are intelligent, insightful, rational types who also cringe when they see shit like this. Who exactly is it benefiting?