Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rchristo10]

Case 1:

This video is taken on New Year's Eve and attempts to show that Itaewon is dangerous because of foreigners. It's a bit misleading at the beginning--starting with a fight then moving on to New Year's Festivities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-SzcWyioDE

People are out having a good time and getting drunk on the holiday. The media goes around the area looking for drunks and happens to catch a couple of foolish ones. ON NEW YEAR'S EVE. I'm sure if the video went to Yeongdongpo or Gangnam you'd see many drunk Koreans and some isolated fights as well.

Case 2:

A nice basket of isolated cases linked again to Itaewon and THE dangerous foreigners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVvv6dpB_0U

Case 3:

Another article where I've searched KOSIS, KOSTAT, and other government stats sites to find info regarding these figures...and come up with nothing:

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/05/17/2012051700591.html

Is this really 8% in Korea (including the North...) or just South Korea (*sarcasm here)? Sounds more like its just Seoul (excluding Gwangju, Pusan, Daejeon, and so on), but I can't find the source doc and the gov sites don't help much. Odd, Odd, Odd.

What kind of strange journalism is this? I know I'm just picking isolated cases too, but I mean I'm not working for a news agency via Daves. Aren't there some provisions or regulations for prosecuting irresponsible journalism here? Didn't President Lee start moves towards pushing for accountability? What happened?

**If the case 1 video was meant to scare foreigners from celebrating or having a good time during national celebrations, then it certainly worked. Can you imagine your face coming out on the news related to Itaewon foolery while being taped during New Year's festivities? That's just wrong.

Most of these cases have been rather recently published. Totally irresponsible journalism in my view, but perhaps there's some merit in taking isolated incidents--some of which are months apart--to create a nationalist and ethnically specific focus? Any ideas?

[sml7285]

My dad was a journalist and now teaches journalism in the States. My family spent a year in Korea while he was teaching under the Fulbright program and he wrote for Chosun-Ilbo as a columnist during that period. What he told me is that pretty much every newspaper in Korea is a amalgamation of the newspaper and tabloid. News stories are often sensationalized to increase sales.

That being said, in traditional Korean homes, the celebration of New Years and Christmas are the opposite of that in the US. Christmas is typically the tine of year when kids get together and party and New Years is spent with the family. Can you imagine the uproar in a city/town if kids in the US got together, got wasted and started fights on Christmas?

[rchristo10]

[sml7285]

[rchristo10]

[northway]

[cfile2]

I don't, for so much as a second, believe that 8% of murders are perpetrated by foreigners.

The headline and article info are mismatched. The title says that 8% commit the crimes, the article says 7.9% are ACCUSED of murder. I would hope those are two very separate statistics.

One hopes that accusation =/= guilt. But where foreigners are concerned in Korea... well I suppose it's not a stretch of the imagination to say that line might be blurred.

Also, it says "violent crimes such as murder or rape..." as if those are the only two violent crimes. I'm only speculating here, but I would assume "violent crimes" would also include minor assault, resisting arrest, etc.

Even if foreigners DO perpetrate "violent crimes" at a higher rate than locals, this article is clearly written in an emotionally charged way. Readers won't react to "assault" the same way they will to "murder and rape."

The whole thing is a *%&$ing joke. How can anyone take reports issued by the police seriously, anyways? A group of people that would have covered up the violent rape and murder of a young woman had a certain tape not got out into the public.

I wonder how many crimes never even make it into the statistics for lack of interest in investigating. I have a lot of questions about that actually.

I'd wager that, for almost every type of crime (but especially where assault is concerned), those involving foreigners are far more likely to end in a police report being written. Police will deal with locals in a different way, and one that probably doesn't always end in a written report.

Part of that will be due to language barriers, part of it due to clear bias.


Again, this is just my speculation. I didn't even try to look into the statistics in the report.

Still, at the end of the day, I'd say police reports issued by Korean police ought to be taken with a grain of salt on their own.

The interpretations of those reports by journalists looking for a juicy story? Those ought to be disregarded entirely.

[highstreet]

I've been here for four years and today I finally got to witness my first fight. Between two Korean women. It only lasted a minute, but it was great. I've seen a lot of guys look like they're about to fight, but nothing ever happens.

[Swampfox10mm]

I had a short-term "friend" who worked as a TV reporter for one of the big three networks. Really, he just liked the novelty of having a foreign "friend" to meet with for drinks, so it didn't last long.

The friendship ended after he called me wanting me to come to Itaewon to help him with a news story. I went to Itaewon, and "helped" him by appearing in his story, which was all about "how scary the back alleys were because there were no lights." He kept telling me exactly what he wanted me to say on camera. It made me really uncomfortable, because in all honesty, I didn't feel scared at all (and I was 6'3", 200 pounds then). So he'd record and I'd say something, but they would stop and he'd re-direct me, telling me, "No, we need you to say...." It was obvious that the story was politically-motivated to get lights in the back alleys, for some reason or another.

From that time I realized that the media here is an absolute joke.

My wife works with an international company associated with one of the largest in Korea. They had a product launching event last year in which a reporter from one of the large newspapers was there. She was interviewed, and refused to give the reporter certain private information about if the product would be made available at certain department stores. So you know what? The news story came out and it was printed that "there was a problem" with the product launch. My wife was livid. Of course, she had to discuss this with the company president, and he said that this is a common newspaper tactic to extort money for advertising. The paper did it so that the company would have to pay for a corrective article that was all rosey.

Then, you add the fact that LMB is controlling the media here, and there are waves of media strikes over it, and you realize that the Korean media is an absolute joke.

[Reggie]

When there's a service happening at the mosque, Itaewon probably has the lowest number of alcoholics per capita in all of South Korea.

[sml7285]

[northway]

[sml7285]

[northway]

[Steelrails]

The news report would be biased if the Korean news media fails to ever report on dangerous areas in Korea that Koreans are involved in.

The other thing to consider is the fact that Itaewon doesn't have the greatest reputation even amongst foreigners. That's not to say its a total scuzz bucket place and doesn't have spots that are populated by tourists and professionals or is a great place to shop and dine in the daytime and early evening, but even amongst foreigners its sometimes viewed as drawing out the worst in people.

But truth be told, one of the fun things is to drink rooftop and watch what craziness happens below. I don't do that from the 5th floor of a bar in Hongdae, Gangnam or anywhere else.

Put it another way, if you had a choice, which 3AM shift at McDonald's would you rather work- Itaewon or one in Jamsil? Or Gangnam? Or Myeongdong?