The number of Muslims in Korea approaches 200,000. They are one of the fastest growing migrant peoples coming to Korea from countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The Hankyoreh online newspaper is doing a three part series on the people with Muslim faiths and the challenges they face trying to create a life in a country that is not familiar with the Muslim faith. Muslims say the biggest challenges they face are Korean prejudice against them, and food - since they cannot eat pork, and Korea lacks kosher food. They are stuck with rice and kimchi.

muslims can coexist in korea. none of the imperialistic baggage.

Muslims can't expect Korea to change to become more hospitable for them.
It took about 250 years for Christians to take place in Korea, Muslims must wait too, even Buddhism took several hundred years gradually accepted into Korean society. Most Muslims in Korea are migrant workers, it will take long time for Koreans to accept them as equal.

Chinese government requires every university to have at least one muslim cafeteria. Offering them muslim food is not enough,they need to use chopstics and plates that have never touched pork before.

^ Yeah, but our "Muslim cuisine" is just Chinese food without pork. You should see what our "Western" food looks like.

You also cant use lard oil in their food.Why do uighurs have so many privileges in china?I thought we were supposed to treat them as equal. Hope the same thing wont happen in korea.

And Hui.

Doesn't China consider Uigurs and Hui who have lived in that area for centuries, to be Chinese, and where they live to be undoubtedly part of China? Since they are being considered Chinese, China has the duty to accommodate their citizens.

However, the Muslims in Korea are new arrivals, they are complete strangers. There has hardly been any interactions with Koreans and Muslims. It is very awkward situation.

Being ethnic minority is completely different from being temp stayers like these Muslim migrant workers.

Deportation is the best solution. Korea (and China) should not have to change its culture to accommodate foreigners. If they don't like it, they can GTFO. Call me an Islamaphobe if you want but I am rather weary of their religion. I don't like the idea of Sharia Law in East Asia either.

They are trying to push Sharia Law in Australia:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-a...x-1226057100331

Why can't they eat beef, fish and other vegetables? Aren't these Halal (Moslem version of Kosher)?

What is the point of immigrating if you want to replicate your country of origin? Just stay where you are. rolls eyes.

Can you post the articles? I would love to read them. Anyways, the prejudice towards Muslims came mainly after the Korean hostages were kidnapped in Afghanistan. Before then, I think a few Koreans were wary of Islam and its treatment of women, but people were mainly indifferent to Middle Easterners. I don't condone it, but it just shows that Koreans are generally accepting unless you mess with them first.

Hui people are Han Chinese practicing Islam, that's the only thing that separates them. Some of them may have descended from Arabs, Turks, Iranians that traveled to China through the Silk Road centuries ago but that was such a long time ago.

religious people don't have a place in any modern civilization.

jews, christians, and muslims should all be sent to go live in some giant sandy pit in their holy land. and leave the rest of us the fu-k alone.

Amen!

Especially the extreme fundamentalists.

And who are you to dictate where they should live? As long as they don't mess with you, what is your problem? You're WORSE than Christian fundamentalists.

I disagree. Christian fundamentalists are equally annoying as much as muslim extremists. The only difference between them is that christian extremists don't go around and behead others for not believing islam.

Therefor, he can't be worse than christian fundamentalists.

I've heard Islamic council have targeted East Asia as one of their expansion due to 40%~50% of population in East Asia don't have religion.
Islamic charity and organizations have step up their investment in S.Korea, many Korean students have received scholarship fund from UAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemeni royal families. There's even Islamic school opened in 2009.

Forcing your belief is not really good thing. If you show good morals, other people might follow you.
If they don't, just leave them alone.

When it comes to religious people, I'm more annoyed by evangelical Christian fundamentalists in Korea than anybody else.

Korea just follows America's mentality. Since America hates Islam, I would imagine Korea is the same way viewing them as terrrorists who hate the West.

Also, Islam is fairly new in Korea, unlike China which has a long history of Muslims who have integrated and become part of Chinese culture.

LOL, why would korea follow America's mentality? We aren't considered as islamaphobia like america or europe.

Stop acting like you know what's going on.

Koreans definitely follow American sentiment. Need proof? Read all the nasty, hateful, and bigoted things "korean" people have wrote on K-chat and other forums. They sound like racist US-loving fanatics.

You don't know Korea.

Since when does this board represents korea?

you chintrolls are either stupid or needs to go outside a bit more.

You must have been mistaken C-chat with K-chat.

Nasty hateful things at K Chat?

Obviously, you haven't read Taiwanese internet forums. If there was no nasty, hateful, bigoted troll like you, there was no negative comments made by Korean members from the beginning.

Maybe I have mistaken White trolls posting as Koreans as real Koreans. I really hope Koreans in Korea aren't as bigoted as the "koreans" online.

That's just your subjective opinion. I'm referring to your posting that Koreans are posting "nasty hateful" material allegedly blindly supporting the US.

many muslims i knew would not expect that. they can tolerate vegetarian or even prolonged hunger as they had to do fasting during the ramandan periods. but it is a problem to some where minced and mixed meat are included in many things, such as that in italy and philippines which makes avoiding pork more difficult than elsewhere.

also some of these people in the muslim countries do not strictly follow such rules, as they are nominal muslims.
even the founder of pakistan, jinnah, ate pork.



not as simple as that. there are rituals to be conducted for halal food.

besides, can u totally trust that the restaurants and stall to be totally honest about the way they handle food? not everyone had the same integrity. we already had the melamine tainted milk as one big example. moreover it takes effort and even increased cost in maintaining a totally separate kitchen that handles halal food which cannot be tainted with non halal food.

Oh I see. I've never thought about ritual thing.
Hope they don't starved to death.
You have to eat something else besides Kimchi and rice.

I don't think there is particularly bad prejudice against the Muslims here, but the recent terrorist attacks against South Koreans in places like Yemen may have changed things a bit.

If a sect of radical Islam emerges in East Asia, will the East Asians be able to fight them off?

I have same expectation to Chinese as well.
You rarely see Korean trolls here at this forum but I notice plenty of Taiwanese trolls.

i heard about a muslim model getting flogged because she was caught drinking beer, which is also prohibited in muslim religion.

i think hindus are the strictest when it comes to food restrictions but jews and muslims should lighten up a bit.

As long as they don't act like what they are doing in some European countries, then it's fine. If not, then fu-k off.

muslims have shown they're incompatible with UK society. they won't integrate, they just set up segregated enclaves. so now the UK is dotted with all these self-imposed "ghettos" frought with poverty, tension, and crime. stepping into one of those ghettos is like stepping into an entirely different country.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994

east asian countries better not risk it.

That's happening in all over Europe, including France, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Germany...

The korean government shouldn't accommodate muslim customs/beliefs/foods. If The muslims don't like this, they can get the fu-k out.

europe needs to do some extreme/draconian things to break up those ethnic enclaves/ghettos.

like:

1. ban head veils/hijab/ethnic dress

2. if children aren't taught the official language, they get taken away by the state and the parents charged with child neglect.

3. ban religous schools and extreme religious institutions

i do that all the time it's ok. lot of times i get confused with japanese and asiaphilic whites too.

i used to think this was true but u know internet is very vast. anyone from any part of the world can just pretend to be us-loving korean. it's a joke to take them seriously, but i agree that korea and japan society (hopefully china will be spared) tend to worship the west beyond nomal levels. this needs to be fixed.

This sounds like a Muslim ultimatum.

Agreed.

For the most part, it's almost difficult to find a Muslim in Seoul. You really have to go out of your way and look.

head veil definitely need to be ban,
ethnic dress shouldn't be ban.

as for hijab, i'm hesistant for a stand, as i thought that outside of uniformed groups and schooling, they should be free to wear that.



children should be taught the language of the host nation, however the measures you mention is too drastic and are not sustainable. if you take the kids away, who is going to take care of them and who will foot the bill of care and the hassle of the lawsuits raised.



if religious schools for islam is being banned, the same had to be applied for other religion as well, otherwise it is religious discrimination.

Moslems will definitely claim that. There is never any doubt.
But then, we don't hear Christian/Catholic/Hindu/Buddhist suicide bombers or terrorists attack.

Basically, I can tolerate any religion as long as they don't set the bombs in the public place to kill innocent people.

I have no tolerance for intolerant religions. And we all know when it comes to intolerance, Muslim religion is the most inflexible and intolerant religion that goes by the ethics of the mid evil centuries. When they try to apply mid evil era morals and customs on the 21st century people, this is the result they have - Muslim fanatics that make Christian fanatics look like teddy bears in comparison.

A number of Korean females ended up marrying Pakistanis and they ended up living in complete nightmare and slavery. They had to be rescued by their family.

well, actually it is difficult to divide out terrorists, terrorism-supporters, terrorism-sympathisers, strong or mild anti-western muslims. there is a spectrum and well, there is substantiate amount of supporters and sympathisers who justify terrorism prominent enough to be heard and tolerated by the governement but they may not be the majority (maybe the same with yasukuni). slapping the whole religion with such actions may not be wise despite of the blurry margins.

i would like to highlight that some of the above statement may not be true in other areas that you may not be familiar. india-pakistan conflicts are intense prior to and during the partition, with mobs of massacre and fire-setting, some of which are retaliatory revenge. north ireland had conflicts associated with different church factions with loyalty to different states. us's oklahoma city bombing is done by a homeground american allerged to be inspired by christian cultish movements.

i admit i had to google for buddhism in relation to terrorism, and i'm not sure if aum shinrikyo can be considered as a buddhist cult. during protests against occupation of tibet, many acted very emotionally and that is regarded by some as violent. i remember that there was a allerged tibetan activitist who had tried to snatch the torch from a wheelchaired sportswomen to protest against china as beijing insisted that the torch is to be brought through lhasa despite plea to avoid commotions and despite earlier promise that they will handle the tibet issue sensitively for the exchange for chance of getting to hold the olympics. though there is no actual violence apart from some struggle over the torch, this single event was and probably is still showcased as the example showing a violent free tibet movement, and many overseas chinese reacted actively to that while claiming the western media is unfair in the presenting the tibetan issue. it was later responded by claimant showing a photo of the allerged tibetan activist walking amidst a group of chinese beijing-olympics supporters who are holding china's flag, and he himself wears the same tibetan flag headscarf, just prior to the event. the same usual stories about fake photos and fake stories to discredit china, marks a dead knot in the discussion of which side is telling the true story. there is no answer to this date, but u can probably read the last post of this page as ultimately nothing concrete is verifiable while the same claims are still being made today. http://biglizards.net/blog/archives/2008/0...t_it_its_c.html

though nonetheless tibet follows certain tradition. western medicine may still be frowned upon in some location. and high ranking monks in some places can have a toilet that is only reserved for him, highlighting his position. whether that constitutes feudalism really is debatable. however, the story extends that the old tibetan buddhist system is claimed by some to be a corrupted feudal system, and therefore not worth to be admired and pitied. some even claim that tibetan monks are free to rape women everyday without being persecuted in the old society. i wonder how true can that be, but nonetheless i believe that some of the records of feudalism may be partially true as there are likely political driven rivalry and violence that can exist even in the buddhist society such as the imprisonment of reting rinpoche who died in the potala palace rumored to have been poisoned or beaten to death, though this final piece of information is not from the chinese propaganda machine.

ira is supported by catholic community in ireland..at least that's how i understood. they are the ones tried to set the bomb on UK bus in a recent queen's visit to dublin, and they caused a lot of havoc for decades up to late 90s using car bombs etc.

i think the world would be a different place if west hadn't meddled in the ME for centuries. back then enemies were nazis and commies before anyone ever considered muslims a threat. religion or not, ppl will retaliate if they are suppressed by foreign powers.