Last year when my family and I were going through my grandfather's Korean war records we came across one document that took us all by surprise. It was a letter from the U.S. government to my grandmother and it was telling her what to expect when my grandfather came home. The letter warned that he may be a changed man with strange cravings for Korean food and they treated it almost as if he had contracted some sort of cultural disease in Korea.
This is the most direct experience that I have ever had and its so shocking that this letter was sent by the U.S. government. The letter really treats Korea and Korean culture as something unfathomable and completely ridiculous. It really shows how ingrained Orientalism was and still is in our society and how harmful it can be especially if the western public has no substantial knowledge about eastern culture and life
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