By Over at the Marmot’s Hole he translated an article from Oh My News! about some foreigners acting stupid in the Seoul subway:
Han Jeong-hyeon, a Korean college student studying abroad in Canada, witnessed an unpleasant scene on the Seoul subway Saturday evening. And he (or she — can’t tell from the name) told OhMyNews all about it. (HT to reader)
At around 6:30pm, he was on the Jungang Line heading from Oksu Station to Wangsimni Station with a student he was tutoring to see a movie. He heard a racket, and when he approached the source, he saw seven or eight foreigners gathered together singing boisterously. Three or four of them were sitting on the car floor like it was their living room, drinking and playing cards. There bags and stuff were on their seats. It was an evening train, so there were lots of other passengers around. [Marmot's Hole]
You can read the rest of this sorry tale at the link.
First of all the behavior of these foreigners on the subway is totally inappropriate. I’m sure many people who have rode the Seoul subway have seen Koreans doing stupid stuff as well, but I have never seen a group of Koreans doing something as inappropriate as this. With that said, is this something that the KORAIL emergency number should be called for? This isn’t an emergency and I am not surprised the Korean guy was blown off by the operator. This group are a bunch of buffoons, but not a threat to people’s safety. I have seen soldiers act inappropriate on the subway before and I have found that by calmly telling people to tone it down the vast majority of the time people will tone it down.
Anyway just to show that Korean netizens are equal opportunity criticizers of subway behavior does everyone remember the Korean gay subway oral sex video?
5:45 pm on May 11th, 2011 1
While their behavior is certainly inappropriate, at least they didn’t ignite the entire farking train creating a raging and deadly inferno.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu_subway_fire
6:13 pm on May 11th, 2011 2
What amazes me about this history is that after being warned by the Korean guy they stopped behaving like that. This means that they knew they were wrong …
Behaving in Korea is easy … just watch how the Koreans behave and do the same, but please don’t be a moron and repeat just the bad examples, otherwise you would not be better than Koreans ….
Koreans tend to overestimate whites, so just don’t be a jerk that you will be welcomed everywhere
6:26 pm on May 11th, 2011 3
I’ve seen enough boorish behavior on the Seoul subway system, most commonly drunken jackasses who rant, vomit, or lie down on the seats and prevent others from sitting there. It’s not like it’s happening all the time, but it does happen. Most SoKos are angered or annoyed by that kind of behavior, and the vast, vast, vast majority don’t do that themselves (most drunk people on the subway usually sit quietly and maybe fall asleep).
And there’s a point to that comment: If you are looking at that kind of boorish behavior and thinking, “Well, Koreans do it, so it’s okay if we do it,” then you’re an idiot who is missing the point on so many levels.
The lowest public behavior in some place should not be your model of how to comport yourself.
6:31 pm on May 11th, 2011 4
Buffoonery knows no national borders and respects no boundaries.
6:35 pm on May 11th, 2011 5
Leon LaPorte wrote:
I’m not sure what your point is, LlP. Are you saying that because a sociopath went into the Korean subway and massacred a whole bunch of people, any behavior better than that is okay?
6:43 pm on May 11th, 2011 6
Somebody over the Marmot said that the girl over the floor is a Korean girl …. Well, I say no way !!!!! … just look at her boobs … that’s not a Korean boobs at all !!!!
6:55 pm on May 11th, 2011 7
#6 – I appreciate your attention to detail and have likewise investigated and concur with your conclusions after thorough analysis.
6:56 pm on May 11th, 2011 8
#5 In short, yes. I would say any “better” behaviour is “better” than killing people. Doesn’t excuse it though.
#6 I noticed that as well, sir. But, she just maybe might be a Korean who has been consuming large quanTITTIES of Big Macs….
7:01 pm on May 11th, 2011 9
#6, #7… Having seen evidence to the contrary, in both Texas and Korea, I sincerely doubt your technical and analytical capabilities in this subject area.
7:09 pm on May 11th, 2011 10
Maybe Han should take a lesson from this guy: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/798564–public-art-fights-bad-subway-manners
7:14 pm on May 11th, 2011 11
Marmot saw someone with a beer at the Lantern festival. Imagine the shock! Sounds like Marmot is ignoring the daily parade of drunken Korean men on the subway and elsewhere in Seoul.
7:15 pm on May 11th, 2011 12
#9, in that case let me check the subject with more attention …
7:17 pm on May 11th, 2011 13
I wonder what Tom would say about this?
7:20 pm on May 11th, 2011 14
Leon LaPorte wrote:
Okay, I’m just thinking it’s sort of irrelevant for a variety of reasons. And not to bag on you, but I call you out on it because I have heard this kind of thing as a legitimate excuse for loutish behavior in Seoul many times.
One important point about the pyromaniac sociopath: no one condoned or made excuses for what he did. For any “well it’s not as bad as this guy” thing to work, you’d have to find something bad that is condoned.
7:23 pm on May 11th, 2011 15
Trevor wrote:
Hear! Hear! After seeing a bunch of Buddhists getting wasted on soju at our local Christmas pageant, I say head for the Buddhist temple on their holy day and drink up!
7:33 pm on May 11th, 2011 16
Who called 911 over this? Imagine what that phone called sounded like with someone just yelling “waygookin” and “beer” over and over again.
7:45 pm on May 11th, 2011 17
There is already a process to discourage that type of behavior. USFK tapped into it, but there is a whole website dedicated to it; ThatGuy.
Keep circulating this and other pictures like it and eventually it will get back to them, their friends and any other who think it’s cool, that it ain’t.
Don’t Be Those Guys.
7:46 pm on May 11th, 2011 18
No someone. Someones. Walking around with beers in their hand. That’s a foreigner thing. Want to drink? Sit down in front of a 편의점 or something. Don’t freakin’ walk around with open beer cans. It makes you look like a a**.
And yeah, I’ve seen drunks on the subway. Not sure why anybody would want to emulate them, but sure, I’ve seen them. And you know what — totally different phenomenon. What you see above is a group of young foreigners treating a subway car like their own personal 술판. That’s inappropriate here, and probably something they’d never do at home. Have you seen groups of young Korean sitting together on a subway floor drinking, singing and playing Go Stop? No, I didn’t think so. It’s typical frat-boy behavior from that segment of the Westerner community who seem to be operating under the impression that being white in Asia is a license to act with impunity.
I’m also willing to bet that if this were a bunch of Koreans getting caught acting like a**hats somewhere in Southeast Asia, the general tone of the commentary I’ve seen so far would be different.
7:47 pm on May 11th, 2011 19
“Don’t Be Those Guys.”
English Teachers?
7:47 pm on May 11th, 2011 20
Sorry, that “NOT someone. Someones.”
7:50 pm on May 11th, 2011 21
Well… what do I really expect from… you know… animals?
This is not a surprise at all.
It’s like watching the monkies in the zoo.
Is it no wonder why the public transit systems in North America are piece of ddong? They do this kind of thing all the time in America. Carved writings in the seats, graffities on the walls, urine under the seats, and unflushed paper stuffed toilets with seats covered in feces and urine. Oh well, at least you can count yourself lucky if you didn’t get mugged while riding the trains.
Where is the sense of pride and sense of civility? So now they bring this attitude and behavior to Korea. Is Korea one big university frat party to white people?
And Dr.Yu, you are quite wrong when you said that as soon as someone told them to behave, they did. No they didn’t. One white guy decided that he wanted to be difficult and became belligerent and continue to drink beer while sitting on the floor of the train. What an A hole.
7:53 pm on May 11th, 2011 22
#21 You pretty much nailed it. But, at least it is American toilets are capable of flushing paper.
7:58 pm on May 11th, 2011 23
#22, even that is outdated Leon. The older toilets in Korea have problems because the pipes are narrow. The newer ones in newer buildings don’t have that problem.
You see, what matter here is the pattern which you can clearly see in both societies. Korea, while not perfect, is getting better and improving all the time. On the other hand, you have countries like America – getting worse and worse and falling apart.
8:05 pm on May 11th, 2011 24
#19 = Yes, good point. These were not service members.
Actually – who the hell are these people? Were they even English teachers? Why does Canada sounds like “A dog came out?”
8:15 pm on May 11th, 2011 25
Tom wrote:
Tom the faux SoKo gets it wrong again. While Tom is right that there is no reason today for telling people not to flush toilet paper down the crapper, it was not because of narrow pipes but something different entirely.
8:15 pm on May 11th, 2011 26
By the way, Tom, when was the last time you were actually in South Korea? Do your handlers pay you to go there to brush up on your schtick?
8:18 pm on May 11th, 2011 27
Appearances indicate they might be English teachers of a specific subset. They seem to be of the young, “hippy”, dope smoking, backpacking, illegal Canadian variety which are mostly harmless but ubiquitous.
8:30 pm on May 11th, 2011 28
Leon LaPorte wrote:
No, he didn’t.
He basically says that subways “in America” plagued by graffiti, urine on the floor, nasty bathrooms, etc., are the fault of people like this group of privileged possibly Canadian White folk in Seoul.
I’d be willing to bet that these folks in the Seoul subway have hardly ever ridden a mass transit rail system in the United States (or Canada… does Canada have railway mass transit?). White kids who presumably go to college in America and get jobs in Korea — or have enough money to travel to Asia, if that’s what they’re doing — aren’t likely the same folks who ride subways and L’s in North America, demographically and socioeconomically speaking. Just aren’t.
So the problems Tom is alluding to — if they are actually widespread problems — are irrelevant to this behavior.
Tom could have just run with White privilege or something like Marmot just mentioned, but Mr Agitprop erred in mixing up his playlist.
By the way, being from Orange County, I’ve hardly had a chance to ride the Los Angeles Metro. I do sometimes take OC’s Metrolink, but it’s not really a “subway”-type thing at all.
But I must say that I was impressed with the L.A. Metro. I rode it through some pretty poor neighborhoods — including one a mile from where I used to live — but I would have to say that it wasn’t bad at all.
There was some graffiti around the platforms, but not more than one would normally find in a big city. There was no urine smell, the seats were not carved into, etc., etc. The people on the train were polite, nice, and once or twice even offered seats to elderly people, etc.
I wouldn’t want to ride the L.A. Metro every day, but I don’t think it was some horrible experience either, not like what Tom alluded to and others agreed with. Leon, have you ridden the L.A. Metro?
Maybe New York is unusually bad, but I’ve never been there so I don’t know. But even if it is, I don’t think you can bash the entire continent on that basis, nor would it excuses these punks of self-privilege.
8:31 pm on May 11th, 2011 29
Tom, how is the weather in China?????
8:38 pm on May 11th, 2011 30
You must have been riding the train with all the Koreans who live in LA.
10:02 pm on May 11th, 2011 31
I did. In DC. The DC Metro was quite nice. One of few places in the city that could be so described, in fact, when I went to school there.
10:18 pm on May 11th, 2011 32
Leon LaPorte wrote:
I know you mean that as a dig at Tom, but the answer is hardly.
About half of the people the last time I went through the old were Black and most of the other half were Hispanic. A handful of Asians and Whites rounded out the rest, and a good chunk of them were tourists.
10:27 pm on May 11th, 2011 33
Robert wrote:
Robert, if I wrote a note that it is rare for White people in Korea to wear a hanbok, you’d chime in with, “I do. In Seoul. The fabric is quite nice.”
But that wouldn’t make it the norm now, would it?
In most places in North America, for most White students, public railway transportation is not the norm, and where it is, it is not a place where the demographic in the picture above urinate under the seats or write the occasional graffito, as Tom suggested.
And no, I’m not knocking the hanbok. If sometimes think it would be nice to wear one to work sometimes. If I could Hawaiianize the hanbok for the climate and conditions here — and I’d call it the Aloha-bok — I would totally do it.
Maybe if I’m ever a prof in Korea, I’ll wear one regularly. But I have a little tuft of chest hair that sticks out right above the V in the front and SoKo women tend to extrapolate that tiny patch to my entire chest and they flee in disgust and horror. In fact, I am no hairier than the average SoKo male, but the cruel irony is that they wouldn’t know that until after I’ve wined and dined, which requires not having that tuft stick out. So you can see my dilemma.
11:30 pm on May 11th, 2011 34
Let’s take a closer look at what we have here in the way of girls… from right to left…
#1
Evidence: Open-toed sandals… thick and pasty-looking radish-shaped calves shamelessly flaunted for the world to endure… floppity flower print below-the-knee dress of the type that looks perpetually unwashed… possible case of stringy hair
Conclusion: Dirty hippie… perpetually boyfriendless and unhappy that the world judges a book by the cover… but numbing that sorrow with frequent joints and vocal pride in the lifestyle of “self-imposed” abstinence while looking for the “right man” and slightly militant vegetarianism that “keeps her so healthy”.
Outcome: Will return to the West blaming her health problems on pollution in Korea rather than her unbalanced diet where she substitutes Dunkin’ Donuts for anything made with animal products.
#2
Evidence: Clompity high-top shoes designed to minimize the ankle/calf size that only work in the minds of the wearer… proudly-displayed thick and misshapen legs with short-shorts or a miniskirt that leaves little of the cellulite to the imagination… an elastic-collar top of a style seldom seen out of the trailer park since the 70s that attempts to draw attention away from the stooped and rounded shoulders of a processed carbohydrate-gulping girl doomed to weigh 250 pounds by her mid-30s… and a self-delusional attitude that thinks this is all sooooo HOT!
Conclusion: Complete slut… getting her 15 minutes of attention (and diick) from anyone who will give it to her before she winds up like her mother as a divorced, chain-smoking, vodka-and-sweet-tea drinking, crow-footed blob sitting in a ratty lawn chair in front of a rented trailer wondering who will take her home after the tavern closes.
Outcome: Will return to the West to get an abortion, have a couple of failed marriages with a trucker and a welder, and will wind up on welfare in front of a rented trailer wonder who will take her home after the tavern closes.
#3
Evidence: Skin not sickly white… upper arms thick and shapeless… slight gut… boobies exactly the pointed contour formed by a well-padded bra.
Conclusion: Korean-Westerner coming back to experience her “roots”… yet being rather frustrated at the whole ordeal. Unlike the nasty white girls who are constantly told by well-meaning Koreans how beautiful they are no matter what they look like or do, this one has to make an effort to not look completely skanky or risk getting treated as an off-duty glass-house girl. Still, in an attempt to be edgy and show her individuality, she is wearing shredded-looking pants. She lacks even the basic manners and good sense to sit in the empty seat behind her and she will make little connection to Korea
Outcome: She will return to the West where she will brag about discovering her roots every time the word multiculturalism is mentioned… but will be crying inside as she will be secretly lost as to her place in the world and baffled at the whole ordeal as to why she didn’t just naturally fit.
#4
Evidence: Clompity shoes… tight jeans… under-emphasized breasts… extra-long and untucked pink shirt with higher-than-a-dude-with-no-guns-should-wear sleeves… lezzie-permed hair.
Conclusion: Dyke… looking to pay off crippling student loans for a degree in comparative lesbian poetry… and try to pick up a sweet little Korean girlfriend if possible.
Outcome: Will return to the West where she will chain smoke and guzzle coffee why amazing her friends about all the cute and sweet girls she saw in Korea. The experience will leave her unable to be satisfied with a more thick and assertive American domestic partner and she will rely on a couple of pit bulls to mask her deep loneliness.
The two guys are a couple of wusses and not worth commenting on.
11:45 pm on May 11th, 2011 35
18, No one was ever defending the numbnutts on the subway. But you just had to point out that you noticed a waygookin with a beer at the Lantern event. Notice any drunken adjoshis? Or is it that you’ve never seen drunken Korean men in public in Seoul? Or do you only make an issue of it when it’s evil waygookin?
1:00 am on May 12th, 2011 36
Steve, if you think Drunken Adjoshi ™ and foreigners walking around with open beer cans in another country’s capital are somehow similar phenomenon, well, I can only hope yours is a minority opinion.
1:55 am on May 12th, 2011 37
This only tells me how much of an idiot Kushibo is.
So it’s proof on pudding that I’m a Chinese agitprop from Beijing because I said some toilets especially in older Korean buildings can’t handle the flushing of tissue papers due to inadequate plumbing? So how do you explain the fact that if you do try to flush the papers, and the toilets get clogged, with dirty water overflowing? To save yourself that embarrassment, it’s practice to wipe, fold, and put inside the waste bin. Now before you white folks from fantastically civilized Western societies criticize this method as another example of proof of inherently inferior brains of Korean minds, this method is how most countries outside of North America does it. So take your superiority complex which you will inevitably show, elsewhere and shove it down that waste basket.
I admit many Koreans still hold onto the old habits of not flushing the papers even if they don’t need to. That’s because the infrastructure developed very fast, and it takes time for people to break out of the habit when they were used to plumbing that was inadequate. Plus many buildings especially older ones still have toilets that clog if you put any paper in it.
But what are you supposed to do? Tear down all the old buildings and build again? We’re doing that already, so quit your harpings.
Listening to Kushibo, US public transportation system is so fantastic. So fantastic that it’s much better than Korea’s.
US has the number one public infrastructure in the world. Yes Americans really do believe this because most have never traveled outside of the US. How many times I’ve heard that one?
Yes, Koreans triangle hats work in rice paddies pushing water buffalos and they’ve never seen a modern toilet before. We are so primitive. Believe what you guys want to believe.
2:14 am on May 12th, 2011 38
Oh America the Beautiful!
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=7694919
Granted Kushibo’s rant about LA public transportation is not as bad as New York’s, but what good is it if people don’t take them due to the lines going nowhere, and the length of the line is hardly extensive enough to be useful? Isn’t it just a waste of more tax payer’s money rather than being a useful system? Of course it’s only the stupid Koreans who uses squat toilets and who don’t know how to flush the toilets down are the true stupid ones.
2:21 am on May 12th, 2011 39
So if Kushibo is right and white folks would not do this kind of thing (drinking and gambling in the subway cars), then why are they doing this in Korea? What’s the excuse
I guess it’s racism to tell those folks please not do what they’re doing.
2:38 am on May 12th, 2011 40
Tom wrote:
Because that’s not really what happened. I’ve lived in several places in Seoul that were built in 1935, 1955, and 1980, all during the era of the “휴지통에” toilets and all with the original 하수구 system.
The issue, Tom, is that back in the day, Korea’s water treatment systems could not handle solid waste, other than the human variety (and that only barely), so the powers that be pushed people to toss their toilet paper and other items into the 휴지통 (waste basket) so it could be incinerated or buried later.
Trust me, I and my friends, relatives, employees, and housemates who used the toilets did nothing but flush the toilet tissue — for years and years — at all these places, and there was never a problem as you described. Well, I can’t say never, as once or twice something fell into the S-trap (e.g., a brillo pad) and jammed in there, but the same kind of thing happens anywhere.
And sorry for the faux SoKo reference, Tom. This was not meant as a test of your obviously fake persona as just a regular South Korean guy, but rather a way to point out that a lot of people — particularly those who have this explained to them by actual SoKos who think they know why but actually don’t — get this wrong.
2:46 am on May 12th, 2011 41
Tom wrote:
You make a good point, Tom. There is a really serious problem with poor planning when it comes to mass transit routes.
Here in Honolulu, they’re finally going to build a system, a linear route going from the newly created ‘burbs out west to the heart of Honolulu in the east. But it never occurred to the powers that be to make sure the route started at the main university campus here, where 3% of the population goes every day, a segment of the populace that is least able to afford a car, insurance, gasoline, and parking, and thus would benefit most greatly by a rail system and therefore would make it more likely to succeed.
In Los Angeles, they’re only now beginning to put in place enough lines to make it viable for people across the city to get to work. They also need express buses from the stations to major points in the vicinity, but they don’t think in these terms. Only in this way will they be able to create a culture of non-car-ownership where people routinely take the bus and rail.
2:57 am on May 12th, 2011 42
Tom wrote:
Wow, you have the remedial English reading comprehension of… I don’t know… a Chinese TOEFL student?
According to Kushibo, the Los Angeles railway system isn’t as bad as Tom described it in #21.
Does Kushibo think the US public transportation system is so fantastic, as Tom says I do? Absolutely not.
I’ll admit that I’ve never been to the US East Coast, so if it’s a glorious system there, I apologize. Going by what I’ve heard, and going by my own experiences with public transport in San Francisco, Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, and Honolulu, South Korea is hands down miles ahead of the US in terms of public transport, both rail and bus.
This is in part why I chose to live and then buy in a neighborhood close to the excellent lines #1 and lines #4.
In Orange County, where I’ve had to take around a wheelchair-bound relative on public transport, the infrequency of the buses and the unreliability of the schedule make it utterly impractical to use, and thus only people who have to will ride it (wheelchair-bound, those who lost their license, the poor, unlicensed kids, etc.). Everyone else will buy a car as quickly as they can, so the purpose is defeated.
Sure, the bus schedule in Seoul is not followed, but it doesn’t matter, because they are so frequent. Not so in OC or L.A. where you miss one bus and have to wait 30, 45, or 60 minutes. I’m still furious about the one time we waited in the cold for a bus — getting there 15 minutes before the scheduled arrival time — only to have it drive right past us.
In Las Vegas, forget about it.
In SF and Honolulu, it’s passable. The bus routes in Honolulu wind close to just about any populated point, and they come fairly frequently. Ditto with SF, which also has the cable car (not just a touristy attraction) and BART.
Yes, that is annoying. And I’d say it applies to health care as well.
3:11 am on May 12th, 2011 43
Tom wrote:
Well, I think Robert/Marmot provided part of the answer:
He also says up in #18:
See, Tom? This is one of those areas where your pro-Chinese ranting and raving against Westerners is kinda sorta right.
In fact, I’ve seen far worse examples of this kind of behavior in China, where Americans, Canadians, and especially Brits just regarded Chinese in general as not worthy of respect or human treatment. I can see from where Tom’s anger stems. It was disgusting.
Arguably, it’s racism not to tell them.
I’m just one person and I’m probably shorter than most of the males in that group, if they’d been able and willing to stand up and face me, but I wonder if I’d have had the guts to go and tell those people off for being such duckweeds.
If you’d had my back, Tom, I would have done it. And I would have had your back if you’d done the talking instead (being from Toronto, Tom, you might understand their “eh” code better than I).
If you weren’t with me, Tom, I’d probably have muttered something in Korean about what 버릇없는 people they were, so that Korean speakers close by me could have heard it and then probably would have had my back if my confrontation with the boozing poker pricks turned ugly.
3:38 am on May 12th, 2011 44
Tom…
I think Kushibo is right.
There is another reason for not flushing the TP… due to the design of the Korean sewer system.
On the other hand, I doubt that many Koreans know why… it has just become a habit.
I have flushed my paper from a basement toilet through a pump and through 35 year-old pipes with no problems.
TP is amazing stuff and it breaks down very well… and should not be confused with tissue.
And that is probably more than you wanted to know about TP and what I do with it.
4:27 am on May 12th, 2011 45
#44, not always true. It’s a hit and miss. I remember one embarrassing thing did happen to me while I was visiting my friend’s apartment in Kwangju in the early 1990′s. Her apartment was about 10 years old at that time. I was in an extreme hurry and I took a massive dump but found out they had no trash bin in their bathroom. I had to flush the papers down, and the toilet just clogged and the ddong water boiled over. That was the only time I’ve ever flushed the papers down. I always use the trash bin to avoid the chance that it will clog up the pipe. Actually you can easily tell if it’s going to clog or not, by two factors: Is the building old? Does the toilet have a strong pressure flush or not. If it has a weak rotating flush, then you know it’s more then likely it will not be able to handle it. You might be able to flush, if you wait long enough for the tissues to dissolve in water, and then flush.
Kushibo has some strange ideals about his insistence that I’m a Beijing agitprop based on very flimsy evidence that I support China. I have never supported China. His constant personal attacks, rather then addressing my points is a sign that he should be banned by the moderator. He is turning this board into a mockery and bringing everybody down. He is a troll that should be banned.
5:22 am on May 12th, 2011 46
Bet you those ‘foreigners’ are actually Canadian.
5:29 am on May 12th, 2011 47
#45,
Wow, you’re making progress. You’ve finally admitted you’re full of it.
5:40 am on May 12th, 2011 48
I also suggest to add Teadrinker to the ban list, as well as all the Canadians should be banned.
5:41 am on May 12th, 2011 49
#37,
Never heard of plungers? Basically, the buckets are there because until just a couple of years ago nobody was around to take care of the mess when the toilets did get clogged, or do any other maintenance. The public restrooms in the subway, for example, were so filthy in the past, you’d have to stuff tissue up your nostrils before entering in order to suppress your gag reflex.
5:44 am on May 12th, 2011 50
#48,
Here, I’m sure you need it.
http://www.talkingmakeup.com/pics/ban/ban.jpg
6:05 am on May 12th, 2011 51
Tom…
I know you want to sink the enemy fleet all at once… but try to fire your torpedoes one at a time.
6:22 pm on May 12th, 2011 52
How come everyone pics on foriegners in Korea? this site does nothing but bash everyone.
6:30 pm on May 12th, 2011 53
#34. That was some highly inspired stuff. Thx for the great laugh.
7:19 pm on May 12th, 2011 54
@51,
Tom’s been shooting nothing but blanks, why do you think he’s always so angry at western men.
7:44 pm on May 12th, 2011 55
Sometimes Kushibo speaks of his home in Seoul. Sometimes he says he’s from Orange County, which is in California USA. Other times, he says, “Here in Honolulu [Hawaii USA]“. Tom, I’m sure you can see that he’s an imperialist agitprop poseur.
9:37 pm on May 12th, 2011 56
The one guy drinking beer is leon laporte. lol
9:41 pm on May 12th, 2011 57
#56 You got me!
3:34 am on May 13th, 2011 58
and now, back to the obese canadians on a train…
8:47 am on May 14th, 2011 59
I have a hard time getting outraged over this. Sure it’s very unprofessional/immature behavior, but quite frankly I could just as easily see this headline reading “Korean Netizens Upset with Foreigners on Seoul Subway” with a photo caption of “Look at the white people disgracing our Subway by not being Koreans.” It’s hard for me to feel sympathy for a populace that’s enraged over nearly anything that foreigners do. I think it’s a sad state of affairs for any country when the United States, in general, is less racist than your country.
10:22 am on May 14th, 2011 60
Rage Kage,
“I have a hard time getting outraged over this.”
Is that because you were raised in a barn by wolves and think flopping your azz on a subway floor while guzzling a 40oz bottle of beer is somewhere close to appropriate behavior?
I have seen the same, and worse, in the dining car and the step area of the train. How is this excusable?
Most Koreans are embarrassingly kind, considerate, patient, respectful, helpful, accommodating, generous, etc., to (white) foreigners… even when the foreigners are obviously complete idiots and it is uncomfortable for everyone involved to watch.
I like that good treatment… very much… and it has given me opportunity and experience with high-level people unavailable to me Back Home where I am just another schmo…
…and I insure this treatment continues by maintaining a good appearance, exhibiting impeccable public manners, speaking correctly to people, helping little old ladies carry heavy things up the steps for all to see, and everything else I can do to fulfill my end of this generous social contract which offers so much and requires so little… mostly just to not be a diick.
Azzclowns like this just encourage the opposite attitudes I like Korean strangers to have toward me… as, in business, it is not uncommon to be greeted with a bit of suspicion until I am known, or someone I know vouches for me… as, despite all the nice treatment, Koreans are very aware that most of the foreigners here are COMPLETE LOSERS.
Maybe these losers are here for a year or two to yap some half-azzed English to wide-eyed “students” while paying off loans for their worthless degree in comparative mediæval lesbian studies… so they don’t really care…
…but, with a high-speed Korean wife, businesses, property, association memberships, and years of long-term sacrifice at the expense of short-term gain to build a good reputation, I am pretty attached to Korea for now… and I AM outraged, or at least as outraged as I can get, over dirtbags like this out-dirtbagging the lowest, drunkest, craziest Korean on the subway…
…and I am very suspect of anybody who would not see this and be completely irritated… as they are likely a dirtbag or fool as well.
Nothing against you… as you may not have thought this all the way through… but that is where I stand on the matter.
11:03 am on May 14th, 2011 61
Koreans are friends to you if you are kind to them. Be an a$$ and start sh*tting on Koreans, and you’ll get the same thing thrown back at you multiplied by three times. It’s too bad such kind friendly white foreigners like Chickenhead have to put up with the reputation built up by the short time white guys who think they own Korea.
2:11 pm on May 14th, 2011 62
Hats off to ChickenHead for comment #60 and agreement to Tom for comment #61.
It’s Living in Korea 101, a lesson I have literally taught to a number of people, some of whom scoffed at it.
2:51 pm on May 14th, 2011 63
I like Tom.