Hines Ward REAL first visit NOT so Nice

Hines Ward's real first visit to Korea was in 1998
“After Ward was named the Super Bowl MVP and South Korea rushed to try and embrace him as its own. He was heralded a national hero and came to be cast as a symbol of shifting attitudes toward biracial children, though at the time people were proud of him more for being Korean than for being an agent of social change. His mother famously told the Chosun Ilbo in 2006, in response to the question “What does Hines think about the Korean blood that runs though his veins?”
“What does Hines think about the Korean blood that runs though his veins? WELL, his mother respond:

“…Since he was young, he always got along well with the other Korean and Vietnamese kids. It seems like he does have some pride in his Korean blood. But we've also been hurt as Koreans. When Hines was in high school, there was an inter-school friendship match for the Korean students. Since he was good at baseball, a school invited him to play. But after the game, when the kids went out to eat, the person who put together the event only took the Korean kids, leaving Hines behind (Ward is of mixed parentage, his father an African-American). After that I told Hines to never hang out with Korean kids. Yet when we went to Korea in '98, even Korean people who looked educated spat when we walked by. Koreans judge others based on their appearance and their age. Those kinds of Koreans think that they are so special."
The Korean War Baby notes: Hines Ward has done much to help Biracial children in Korea. The Pearl S. Buck foundation has also been involved in helping him to help bring attention to the thousands of Biracial and Multicultural children, especially those of Black American fathers (Called TuiGi but applied to all Mixed-Bloods). Prejudice against them is much higher it seems. Read more on this from THIS:

Mixed-blood fighter

Mixed-Blood Fighter
Posted by urbanara on April 3, 2006
"Who's the mixed-blood fighter having achieved three consecutive wins in Pride Musado?"
(Pride Musado may be one of K-1 fighting championship i guess.) The bluntness of using the word 'mixed-blood' to describe a person made me taken aback. Connecting "Mixed-blood" with "fighter" had especially some dramatic effect. Saying 'Who's the fighter having achieved three consecutive wins in Pride Musado?" must have been able to convey the meaning perfectly. There are not many people who achieved such things lately and the photo was kindly there to enlighten people. Saying "Who's the Korean-Canadian fighter…." could be better than that, if the author really wanted to make clear his "mixedness". (As fas as I know, he was born between Korean father and Canadian mother.)
The Korean War Baby made comments on this to explain that for Korean media using the term “Mixed-Blood” is simply the way they translate, HonHyulah, literally “Mixed-Blood”. Political Correctness has a long way to go in the Land of Morning Calm.

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Then this:

Glimmer of hope for `forgotten ones`

The Korea Herald. 2005.07.04
”They have for long been the "forgotten ones" - ostracized by their peers and largely ignored by the authorities - but this week may herald a new beginning and a better future for the nation`s approximately 15,000 Amerasians.
The Korea League Association of International Family, is poised to be established this Thursday and will become the first legal advocate group for people of mixed race after being authorized by the government.
The group`s president, Bae Ki-chul, himself a mixed-race person whose father was an Italian-American GI, has hopes of changing the lot of the Amerasians - a term coined for offspring of an Asian and a Westerner, more often than not an American serviceman. Amerasians are mostly an unwanted legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War and relationships, forcible and otherwise, between Korean women and servicemen which did not work out.
"It is not an individual problem, but a social problem, but the government has never been serious about biracial people. It tries to hide the problem," Bae said in an interview The Korea Herald.


About 30 percent of 184 children of mixed blood surveyed in 2002, had dropped out of school before completing a junior high due to their unusual look and lack of government support, according to the Pearl S. Buck International, a group set up by the famous American author Pearl Buck in 1964 to assist biracial people in not only Korea but also other countries.
…Bae said biracial people suffer heartburn when they hear stereotyped comments that their mothers were either impoverished war brides or even prostitutes servicing U.S. troops.
He said this country, which prides itself on the homogeneity of its population, should abandon its long-standing prejudice toward biracial people.

"Biracial people are heartbroken because of those who are obsessed with pure blood. But throughout Korean history, Korea has been invaded tons of times, meaning that few of us have pure blood. Why not get along well with one another?" he asked.
By Jin Hyun-joo.(hjjin@heraldm.com)

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Prejudice will always be with us, though laws can help give people of MultiRacial/multicultural etnicity at least a legal platform. Changing laws does not change hearts, but as the thousands of multicultural children grow up in the rural countryside the next generation of Koreans will HAVE to deal with this new dynamic.

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