Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mack4289]

So we have a couple of classics here. First is the alarming story that's hard to justify putting on the front page for any journalistic reason, unless we take the isolated incident or two and make it a trend, without citing any statistics or real evidence to back up its status as such.

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2877481

"Following the death of a 10-year-old boy suspected of being the victim of a choking game, education authorities yesterday warned against dangerous activities sometimes associated with children�s play.
An elementary school boy in Gunsan, North Jeolla, was found unconscious around 9 p.m. on Thursday at home by his father. The boy appeared to have strangled himself with a cord used to carry a book bag, police said yesterday.

The child was moved to a nearby hospital, but died Friday.

�He used to play the choking game, in which he strangled himself with a rope. I have scolded him many times,� the victim�s father was quoted as saying by the police. Police believe the boy killed himself while playing the dangerous game.

Choking has become an increasingly popular schoolyard activity in Korea in recent years among some elementary and middle school students, educators say.

In the game, youngsters restrict the supply of oxygen to the brain, often by pushing hard on the chest or through strangulation. It is said to create a sense of euphoria.

It is not the first time that the highly dangerous activity resulted in serious injury. In July last year, a middle school student in Iksan, North Jeolla, died after he passed out during the game and fractured his skull on the floor."

Did you get that kids? Choking yourself is dangerous. If you want to get high, use drugs like a normal person.

Next we get the "kids today don't play (insert archaic, pre-video games childhood game here) because they're too busy with (insert fun new technology that kids who played the archaic game would've killed for). Childhood is slipping away, Mom doesn't make apple pies anymore, liitle Johnny wouldn't eat it anyway because he's too busy shooting heroin, etc"

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/01/opinion/games.php

"On a few dirty squares of sidewalk in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn is a chalk drawing as mysterious to the uninitiated as hieroglyphics. Someone had, with great care, marked off a series of squares and given each a numerical value, although there did not seem to be any obvious pattern.

The drawing is a skelly board, for a game once so popular on the streets of New York that on some blocks adults had to walk in the street to avoid interrupting any of several games under way.

In a time before video games, trans fat or car alarms, in a city that seemed like a smaller version of present-day New York, screaming children ruled the streets. There was the whack of stickball on the asphalt, the singsong rhymes of double-dutch jump rope on the sidewalk, the smack of curb ball in the gutter, the pained yelps arising out of a game called "booty's up," and the frantic counting of hide-and-seek in unexpected corners.

With joyous abandon, kids roller-skated, played ring-a-levio and steal the bacon, used sticks to roll discarded tires down the street, built go-karts and forts out of debris, and wrenched open fire hydrants, drenching whoever dared go past.

Today, such loosely organized street play, outside of skateboarding and basketball, is on its last gasp in the city, a vestige of an age for which a fast-paced world has little time."

I don't know about you guys, but I'm really curious to find out what booty's up is. Sounds like something the neighborhood priest used to play, before kids got too sensitive for it. With their newfangled Playstations and child protective services, kids just don't have time to play booty's up with Father O'Neill, the kindly old priest who likes to feed the birds in the park on Sundays. He used to give sermons at this time, but when the bishop had to close his church because of the crushing cost of sexual abuse lawsuits, Father O'Neill figured this fast-paced, fast-food world just didn't have a place for people like him anymore.....

[HighTreason]

[Masta_Don]

Booty up is another name for ass up. I forget exactly how it's played but it's a line of kids on a wall and one kid maybe 20 feet from the wall. That kid throws the ball at the others, usually a tennis ball, and tries to peg them. I forget why you got punished but punishment was standing spread eagle leaning a against the fence, ass out. The thrower got a certain number of throws depending on what you were being punished for.

[jlaskie]

i've actually done that "strangulation" thing before...it's not uncommon among kids in the states, too. i didn't wrap anything around my neck, of course, but had someone else put pressure on the arteries in my neck with their thumbs until i passed out.

probably one of the most bizarre experiences i've ever had. the things that go through your head in those few seconds are trippy as hell. i woke up drooling with no idea what had just happened...i can actually see how kids can get a kick out of doing it repeatedly. but then there's the whole...killing-brain-cells thing to consider, of course. and apparently death.

[wo buxihuan hanguoren]

Yeah well when drugs are so scarce in Korea you take what you can get I suppose.

Korea needs drugs. Good drugs. And soon. Before they and their collective mind-set self-implodes!

[HighTreason]

[yingwenlaoshi]

[happeningthang]

It's probably another case of a scarfer being hushed up. Damn the media and their consipiracies.

[mack4289]

[mateomiguel]

I didn't do strangulation in high school but I did help make other people pass out. What you do is put your head down between your knees and breath fast for a minute or so, then quickly stand up and get some big guy (me) to grab you around the chest and squeeze. Hold your breath while the big guy is doing this and you'll pass out in about 20 seconds.

I was always surprised how easy it was to make people lose consciousness.

This one guy would have completely vivid dreams of some birthday party he had a few years ago when a gorgeous girl came unexpectedly. He would only have a few seconds dream at a time, and wanted me to keep knocking him out so he could see the next few seconds of his incredibly vivid memory. But each time he was out for longer so I finally stopped before he just decided to not wake up.

This sounds like the same sort of thing.

[TheBrain]

[pdxsteve]

[Julius]

how can you ever even entertain the idea of strangulation? insane

[spliff]

It's more or less like Funniest Home Videos...why not publish it...

[caniff]