During my first visit to Korea, I was an unwilling human spectacle. In 1972 I enjoyed traveling by bus through rural and "exotic" Chun-Chan Province. I would hop off the bus as it paused in a small village. I would hurry to buy something at the bus-stop market. Before I knew it, children would gather around me. It was as if they had radar for foreigners. The kids would get excited and shout, "MiGook Saram, MiGook Saram" (American! - American!). Suddenly, I would be surrounded by a few dozen boys and girls just staring at me. A few would point and a few would giggle. I guess that a person who is tall, light skinned, hairy, and round-eyed provided village kids with one of their few amusements back in those days. My classic memory occurred when I visited a monument as a tourist. As I was trying to read a brass inscription, a young man -- unknown to me -- approached and asked if I would pose with him in front of the monument. He next asked me to put my arm around him. I cheerfully obliged as his friend snapped a picture. I imagine that today my picture is a trophy displayed proudly in someone's scrapbook somewhere in Korea. In a uni-culture like Korean, a person with different looks stands out like a light bulb in a dark room.
These memories came flooding back to me as I traveled around Rwanda last year. As I walked down dusty side streets in the city of Kigali, I often found myself surrounded by children. Just like in Korea 30 years earlier, there were giggles and pointing fingers. Instead of saying "MiGook Saram", the little African kids shouted "Mujungu", a word which means "white person". But this time there was irony in their words, because the word "Mujungu" was not only aimed at me, but also at my Korean companions. In the eyes of African kids, my Caucasian face was not distinguishable from the Korean faces of my friends. We were all "Mujungu" to them. I asked my interpreter about this. He said, "sure, there are two kinds of people in the world, native Africans and everybody else". To be honest, there were a few people that shouted out "Chinese" when they saw Koreans, but mostly it was just "Mujungu".
As we finished up our mission in Rwanda, my wife and I spoke in front of a large church congregation. Our Rwandan interpreter, Frank, stood between us. I couldn't pass up this opportunity to point to the three of us as a "rainbow family"; African, Asian, and European standing together as one in the sight of God.

Race and color is only a matter of perception. When I walked in Korea, I was a spectacle in the eyes of Korean children. When I walked in Africa with a Korean, the two of us were spectacles in the eyes of African children. I bet that if I were to travel to Mars along with my Korean wife and with my African interpreter, the three of us would be spectacles. Martian children might point at us and not be able to distinguish our features. Perhaps the little ones would giggle and shout out "earthlings, earthlings".