Korean Job Discussion Forums

[West Coast Tatterdemalion]

Let this thread die already...

Here, I'll make it easy for you. Foreigner takes a machete and hacks up some Koreans on the subway=news. Foreigners play cards on the subway floor=not news. Hope this helps.

[ESL Milk "Everyday]

Tiny Story On Nateon News Causes Big Stir On Foreign Teachers' Website!

[madoka]

This woman talking on her cell phone on the train made it to CNN and international news. How long before it's turned into a race issue and Rev. Sharpton and Jackson start marches?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110518/us_yblog_thelookout/loud-cell-phone-talker-removed-from-quiet-car-by-police

A woman who was escorted off an Amtrak train by police this weekend after she allegedly refused to stop talking loudly on her cell-phone has the Internet cheering her fate.
Civilians and quiet-car champions are supporting her ejection for violating policy at high volume during the 16-hour journey. It doesn't help her cause that she became belligerent when confronted about it by one of her fellow passengers.

KOMO News reports that Lakeysha Beard says she felt "disrespected" by the incident, though passengers said it was Beard who was being rude by refusing to stop yapping while sitting in one of the train's designated quiet cars. She had not stopped talking since the train pulled out of Oakland, California, 16 hours before it reached Salem, Oregon, when a passenger confronted her about the talking. That's when Beard got "aggressive," KATU reports, and conductors stopped the train so that police could remove her and charge her with disorderly conduct.

Amtrak created quiet cars in 2001 when a group of passengers who rode the Philadelphia to D.C. route every morning asked if they could reserve a car where cell-phone loudmouths weren't welcome. Ever since, the rare havens of quiet have become a battlefield between silence-loving rule-followers and rebellious cell-phone addicts. Gawker suggested, not without a dose of sincerity, that the cops who removed Beard from the train were heroes, and that Beard should be charged with "unspeakable crimes against humanity and sentenced to life on some distant planet where there are no reception bars, ever."

According to a very scientific reader poll at The Huffington Post, 77 percent of people were happy the woman was hauled off the train. And CNN personality Anderson Cooper blasted the woman on his "ridiculist" last night, asking "What could someone possibly talk about for 16 hours?" He even compared being stuck on the train with a person who would do such a thing to the "fifth circle of hell."

The Internet is full of tales of innocent people's quiet-car journeys being marred by loud passengers who ignore the rules. An Israeli blogger with a PhD in conflict resolution wrote a lengthy post about the best way to get a fellow passenger to shut up without starting World War III. "Always assume the transgressor is ignorant, not arrogant. This way you won't feel wronged and can communicate your message with less contempt and hostility," he suggests.

Meanwhile writer Christopher Buckley, a self-described quiet car Nazi, wonders why there would be any confusion as to the correct behavior in that part of the train: "The Quiet Car does not hide its light under a bushel. Prominent and explicit signs hang from the ceiling at five-foot intervals. They declare, unequivocally, that NO CELL PHONES ARE PERMITTED and that conversation must be kept to a minimum and in hushed tones."

[Unposter]

The intent was to make fun of foreigners. Wherever that happens, and I am sure it happens all over the world, it is generally condemned by the usual groups as racist. Spin it anyway you want but the intent was still to make fun of foreigners.

[The Cosmic Hum]

[Radius]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Steelrails]

[RangerMcGreggor]

[Unposter]

Oh the outrage? Yes, I forgot the outrage.

It is not like they were breaking any laws.

Yes, I guess, they made things a little inconvenient for others. "I guess" because I was not there. But, it is not exactly like that doesn't happen every day.

I see people preaching loudly regularly on the subway or people throwing up or homeless people sleeping on an entire bench during rush hour and no one says anything or people carrying large parcels or selling things and it is difficult to get around them and no one says anything.

The only thing that is of any "importance" to this story is that they weren't Korean.

Now, you be the editor. What is the story? Ok, making fun of foreigners may sell newspapers or increase ratings on TV news or increase the number of hits to my website. But, it does not make it right.

Where has our moral compass gone?

Which is the bigger outrage: making fun of foreigners and considering this newsworthy or some kids sitting down in an aisle of a subway?

Maybe, it is just my opinion - fine - but I don't like this anything for a buck; anything to sell papers attitude. We need to draw the line sometimes. We DO draw the line a lot but we have been getting rid of those lines and I think we have gone too far.

And, to be honest, I don't even care whether Koreans want to make fun of these kids, it really doesn't mean that much to me, though I worry it starts with something like this and progresses to more troublesome things, whatever they may be.

I just find it amusing how much people on Dave's want to point out that they should be humiliated. Heck! Let's stone them to death on the public square. That's what many of our ancestors did. We all know that was a good idea!?!?

Everyone here just gossiping and laughing at them like a bunch of grandparents going what is wrong with young people today. Back in my day, we didn't even have a subway. Why those ungrateful rapscalions (sp?)?

Seriously, I don't know who is funnier: the kids on the subway or all the two-bit moralists tsk-tsk-tsking. You should all grow up.

Okay, I've said all I wanted to say. I will exit this thread unless people have a specific question.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Unposter]

TUM,

No, I did not mean that we should make our moral compas the same or relative to whatever the moral compass in Korea is.

I meant that we should not be so cavalier to say that whatever sells news is okay. I meant that some things, regardless of whether they sell news or not, is not okay. Our moral compass should not be a-moral or so morally neutral that we say anything that makes a profit is okay.

I understand that some people might disagree with this. I don't really want to discuss it, though I guess I could/would. I just personally believe that there should be limits. It is my belief and I do not plan to change it. I am merely describing my position.

[Captain Corea]

[caniff]

Deserve to be humiliated, huh?

Maybe while in Korea they should have their walking and standing privileges revoked. They'll have to scoot along on their asses every time they want to go somewhere in public.

Or maybe they should have to use one of those carts that the guys with the rubber flipper pants lay face-down on while they beg for money in Sincheon? Radio blaring creepy music and the whole get-up?

Or maybe.....ah whatever.

[Adventurer]

I wish there was a way to encourage better behavior amongst more foreigners. Too many act like they came to camp, not teach. If they acted like that in the UAE they would be sent back home, not that it's a good thing to do.