HIV in Korea - it's just like going back in time!

Ben Wagner has written a great article calling out a group on its scare mongering, bullsh*t regarding HIV/AIDS testing and foreigners. I’m not going to name the group because the less press these bozos get, the better. But here in Korea, we all know who they are. This group spends its time stalking monitoring native English teachers, trying to gather proof of their ‘misdeeds’ in order to have them deported. I once heard a story that they followed a teacher for 154 days and gathered proof that he once picked his nose in public. Really, do these people not have jobs & lives? They do it under the guise of ‘protecting the public’ but, IMHO, they’re just racist, ignorant toe rags with too much time on their hands.

Wagner's article and an interview with Cleve Jones discussing the current gay rights issues in the U.S. got me thinking of the parallels between the U.S. attitudes to HIV/AIDS 25 years ago and Korean attitudes today. I’m going to generalise and ramble but this is a blog and these are my own personal opinions so I figure it's allowed.

I’m a child of the late 70s & 80s and, when I was about 13, my uncle Stuart announced he was gay. My own upbringing (my parents have a ‘live and let live’ attitude) precluded me from seeing him any differently but I remember thinking that his choice to live openly gay meant that he was opening himself up to harassment, discrimination and sometimes violence. I also remember thinking that I understood why he'd stayed in the closet for so long and even married at one point if this was what he had to cope with. Stuart was diagnosed with HIV in mid-80s, back when it was thought of as a 'gay disease'. He died in 1993 and it's always saddened me that he didn't live long enough to see the shift in attitude towards the homosexual community and those suffering from HIV/AIDS that we've seen over the last 15 years. It’s still far from perfect but it’s also far from what it was then.

These days, most countries have a more enlightened attitude to HIV/AIDS. We understand the many ways it’s spread, how it’s not spread and what we can do to prevent it. Voluntary testing is encouraged and I know many people who feel genuinely proud that they regularly get HIV tests (hell, I’m one of them!). Does this mean that we sleep around and shoot crack into our eyeballs? Absolutely not. It means we’re smart enough and responsible enough to get tested irrespective of our risk levels. The lack of social stigma around such tests means we can do so freely and without shame. And professional ethics mean we feel assured that our results will remain between us and our doctors.

The social climate in Korea regarding HIV/AIDS reminds me very much of the climate of fear, ignorance and complacency that pervaded the U.S. when HIV/AIDS first cropped up. I remember seeing a newscast that started with “There’s a new disease amongst the gay population” and being horrified that anyone could make such a prejudicial statement on TV when almost nothing was known about the disease or how it was spread. We discussed HIV/AIDS in a life skills class in high school and most of my classmates felt the issue didn't affect them, as they were straight and didn't know or didn't hang around with any gay people. I remember worrying how this attitude would affect my uncle in regards to even more harassment, discrimination and vilification.

At the time, pubic and personal opinions seemed pretty narrow-minded and ignorant to me. Looking back, it seems positively medieval. And yet, here are the same attitudes showing up in Korea in 2009. The difference is that instead of Koreans seeing HIV/AIDS as a 'gay disease', they see it as a 'foreigner disease'. I’m no expert on the Korean mind-set but it seems to me that there’s a huge stigma attached to issues around sexual health here. STDs, abortions and adultery occur but they are usually denied or, more passively, never openly acknowledged.

So why is HIV/AIDS the 'foreigner' disease'? I think this mostly comes down to a combination of groups like those mentioned in Wagner's article and sensational stories printed by an irresponsible media. Plus, English teachers are a soft target. Many of us don't read or speak Korean so we don't really know what's being said about us and can't respond in any meaningful way; some know but don't care. And the conditions of our visas are very tight so we're limited in how we can organise ourselves. In short, we can't really fight back. Also, I suppose, in a warped kind of way, it's emotionally and mentally satisfying to lay all the ills of your country at the feet of the 'outsiders'.

Why is it that Korea seems so behind the times when it comes to HIV/AIDS? I think that comes down to Korea’s general unwillingness to or fear of looking at the ugly side of human behaviour. If you're Korean and you believe the myth, you don't have to worry about HIV/AIDS. You're safe as long as you don't consort with those dirty foreigners. But if you explore the reasons why HIV/AIDS is not a foreigner disease, you have to (collectively & individually) look at how it's really spread and do some personal risk assessment, which means looking at your own behaviour and whether it puts you at risk. And Koreans are not above engaging in risky behaviour. This, combined with the ‘it doesn't affect me’ attitude and stigma surrounding HIV testing leaves them at greater risk of contracting and spreading the disease. Maybe blissful ignorance is better in the short-term but it’s certainly dangerous in the long-term.

Western countries, on the other hand, have turned self-examination into a thriving industry (from Dr. Phil to Jerry Springer) so I think we’re more comfortable doing some self-fessing-up. I’d like to think that a good percentage of us understand that if we engage in risky behaviour such as unprotected sex or sharing needles, we’re at risk. Thus we understand that it’s prudent to get some education on how to best protect ourselves. Forearmed is forewarned after all. In addition, if/when we get tested, we don't have to worry about who our medical records get passed to, unlike here in Korea.

But most importantly, I think we fully understand that HIV/AIDS doesn't care what blood runs in your veins, your heritage, your skin colour, religious affiliation or sexual orientation. It’s an indiscriminate killer.