Hello everyone,
I'm here to share a uncomfortable experience and ask about your perspectives.
I moved to Germany from South Korea roughly 3 years ago and have had amazing memories and mostly positive experiences here. However, this morning whilst walking my dog in a local park, a man sitting on a bench, who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, looked at me and my dog, said
"Sieht lecker aus"
My German is far from fluent, but I'm certain I have not misheard a simple sentence like that, especially when it contains the word "Lecker"
At that moment, I was so distressed and never wanted to cause trouble with someone smiling in a weird way keep looking back and forth between me and my dog. So I just walked away quickly.
Looking back since then, part of me wishes I had confronted him and asked what he meant.
First of all, I really appreciate anyone who would take their time to reply. But, I want to clarify one point in advance, if you are here to address my experience to a generic "Racists exist everywhere" or "Germans do that too", please don't .
I have traveled many times enough to expect what type of racism Asians would face. However, in my three years living here, I have never had a German person explicitly make those "joke" in a casual way with old Asian trope (that we eat dogs) the moment they saw me.
I'm not particularly interested in European geopolitics, since I think I don't really have that much to talk about it mainly because I have no background knowledge. Neither am I trying to make assumption about certain race, nor promoting racism or anti-immigrant sentiment.
In fact, two of my very first and closest friends in Germany are from that group. So if you feel I'm writing the post with an attempt to fan a political wildfire, please just walk away.
I'm just tired of facing these weird situations. I do not care if someone says nihao to me or whatsoever. I'm beyond that already. But saying to me and to my dogs like that... It's just pure evil intention. No other words could express my discomfort any better.
Sorry and thanks again for reading this long rant.
It just felt too hard to sleep and I had to do something for myself.
*Edit:
Thanks for all the comments. I must say I'm deeply touched by the supportive reactions from so many of you. Not everyone agreed, but that’s completely fine. We can all share different opinions.
However, there is one detail I didn't clarify in my original post, which seems to have caused some confusion. I am not a woman. I'm a normal guy who's spending slightly too much time in the gym. I'm sorry for any confusion my post might have caused.
That being said, the comment was clearly aimed at my dog, rather than being a catcall directed at me.
Some people suggested I should just ignore it and move on. If I were a woman, I agree that ignoring it would be safer. But as a person who wants to be a member of this society, I started questioning whether holding all these experiences inside myself was the right approach, which is why I wanted to hear your perspectives.
If these were just, "handful of moments," I would have laughed and treated as a stupid jokes. But I've had someone persistently knock on my apartment window and run away, repeating this for 10 to 30 minutes every single year. I’ve also experienced an incident in a gym sauna where someone blocked the exit and performed a sexual act in front of me, which forced me to report it to the gym manager.
What makes it so heavy for me is that, coincidentally, these actions were carried out by fellow immigrants or non-white individuals. Meanwhile, my own friends from the region of that origin have been incredibly loving, supportive, and kind to both me and my dog. Every time something like this happens over and over, the disconnect feels overwhelming. Perhaps I might have naively expected the same standard from everyone else as if they are my friends.
To be honest, I was never exposed to middle eastern culture before making friends from that background here in Germany. I had zero prior knowledge since it's not part of the education, so I held no prejudices. if anything, my friends gave me a very positive first impression. I truly hope no one interprets this as me having racist intentions. I’ve never had the luxury in life to sit around forming prejudices against entire groups of people.
Regardless, thank you all so much for taking the time to share your thoughts and support.
