Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Bouvguy]

Yep, the cops searched my backpack! So I was sitting in the Burger King across from the police station in Myoung Dong. I was on the second floor and I got a window seat. I was alone, so I was mindlessly staring out the window watching people walk by when I notice a cop looking up at me. I don't think anything of it until he appears next to me at my table! He says something in Korean, so I say in English "I don't speak Korean". I go back to staring out the window, then a second cop shows up! He knows a little English and says "look in bag". My knee jerk reaction was to ask why. He says "eventa". So I assume there is some sort of special event going on, so he wants to lookm in my bag. I say, "oh, so you want to make sure I don't have a bomb". I didn't have anything to hide, so I let them look. Ten seconds later they said "okay" and walked off. So, is this normal? Are they doing "random" searches before the Olympic torch run, or is there some other "event" going on? I say "random" because I doubt they were searching Koreans. This was on Wednesday afternoon btw, and I am an average looking white guy.

[Bibbitybop]

I read about some random searches that occurred a few years back, but haven't heard anything lately.

What I read was that police must have a valid reason, but in this insane country, who knows?

You should post your question to the reliable and respectable Seoul Police Snitch Board here:

http://www.smpa.go.kr/smpa2007/bbs/board/listMain.asp?code=for_eng&page=&s=&c=&sort=&sk=

[poet13]

That's f-ed.

[Fishead soup]

This is because so many foreigners are on drugs. The police man was just doing his job. The Koreans need to do this because so many foreigners are bringing drugs into Korea. Another problem is many Foreigners engage in Premaritual sex. This is forbidden in Korea.

Please don't make any bad inpression of foreigners on Korea. You need to go to the police station get youreslf fingerprinted and get a crimminla background check. Please be a good foreigner for Koreans

[hogwonguy1979]

too bad you hadnt come directly from the gym and had your workout clothes in your bag, that would of been so funny

otherwise that stinks, then again with us waygooks probable cause doesnt exist here

[JustJohn]

[Bouvguy]

Maybe they were just sitting on the second floor of the police station and got bored, so they came over to say "hey". Or maybe they wanted a whopper and needed an excuse to get out of the station. It didn't really bother me. It was just odd that they went to all that effort to walk across the street and go to the second floor to talk to me. I wonder how they knew I had a backpack? If I were a suicide bomber, Burger King would not be my choice for a last meal!

[anyway]

[darkcity]

my friend's car got searched twice in one night in japan.

he's japanese, and we were double parked, waiting for i can't remember what. there were some cops behind us so we started to pull forward, but they flashed their lights and we stopped the car. they were friendly about it, but they did want to search the car. don't know what they were looking for, but they looked under the seats, in the glove box, everywhere. didn't have any real good reason to look, but they did anyway. my friend went along with it, so i guess that kind of thing is allowed.

same thing happened on the way home, except it was a checkpoint and the cops were searching everyone's car, or probably just giving the young guys and suspicious looking guys a hard time. but they were so friendly and polite about it, i wasn't irritated by the search at all.

i dunno the laws in japan or korea regarding probable cause, but anyway that's my story. i didn't mind the search at all, to be honest, made me feel a bit safer. didn't feel like they were harassing ME for being a foreigner, but again this was in japan.