Korean Job Discussion Forums

[weatherman]

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/11/09/korea.protest.ap/index.html

Saw some pictures over at http://www.ohmynews.com/

Also look here for some more: http://www.voiceofpeople.org/

What the *beep* is going on?

[Joe Thanks]

[Sejong]

Was in Seoul with my wife this afternoon and witnessed the early stages of the whole thing... when we left Seoul Station there was basically a huge parade/march up towards City Hall square, nothing too serious. PLENTY of cops around, unsurprisingly. We continued past the assembly and did a little shopping at Kyobo Book... but when we came out later to head back to SS, the police were out in numbers I've never seen here before -- many more than I saw any time last Christmas during the anti-US protests. Thousands of them, no hyperbole. They'd blocked off all access to Gwanghwamun while we were in the bookstore and had lined up the riot buses side by side all across the street beside City Hall. They had the water cannon-mobile out and everything. The strange thing was that there were tons of bystanders just hanging out on the sidewalk taking it all in -- couples, old people, etc... so I personally felt (relatively) safe just hanging back and watching as well. Anyway, we saw the demonstrators advance to just shy of the buses, as a few dozen cops climbed onto the tops of the buses and waited... it took about 30 seconds for the first protestors to try and scale the front of the buses, but they were beaten down pretty rapidly by the police. Which of course was just the pretext the protestors needed to charge the police line, which led to the police charging back... about the time protestors started rooting around on the ground around us for stray bricks to throw at the police, we decided it might be time to bugger off... so we just casually strolled past the whole thing and left. So weird, there were still tons of ordinary people standing there watching, or passing through on their way to Starbucks or whatever...

Obviously we left at good time -- looks like it really heated up after we left.

I could kick myself for not bringing my camera along today though!

[Real Reality]

Unionized workers and student activists; 50,000 demonstrate labor policies and part time work
http://www.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200311/200311090218.html

Protesters Throw Firebombs at Police
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200311/kt2003110921280010220.htm

images available at
http://www.chosun.com/media/photo/news/200311/200311090218_02.jpg

http://photo.hankooki.com/gisaphoto/20031109/leviathan200311092136140.jpg

[Juggertha]

why did I feel disgusted when I watched it on TV?

[just because]

This country must protest more than any other country in the world. The saying goes you can never please all of the people all of the time but here if you're not pleasing somebody they protest. Gotta love the Korean spirit though, never give in without a fight.
This is the reason why Korea will never advance to a G8(or one day G25) country. They never see the long-term benefits, just look at the short-term costs. they blew it on the Chile free trade agreement, and if they don't start making FTA's soon then they will definantly fall further behind the rest of the world.

[qwunk89]

It was pretty intense. I was on a bus going to CGV to buy Matrix (don't have high expectations for this flick) tickets with a friend. And we had to get off the bus early because everything was all blocked up around city hall. I wasn't to sure about getting involved because i didn't know if it was some kind of anti-american protest, but my friend was ultra-curious so i was down. We got to the vocal point, it seemed it had been going on for sometime, because on our way to the action we passed a police-soldier who had a busted up leg. There were literally thousands of police-soldiers who were getting all psyched up to go disperse this mob who were thorwing rocks and multav cocktails. Later, we saw that they were breaking up the sidewalk and unearthing sidewalk bricks with some kind of sewer grate for extra ammo. And, some of the cocktails were exploding into quick, sharp fireballs, but others were fizzling out in the air. It was very intense and we saw one protester who had been captured and it appeared as he was clubbed to the head by a police-soldier, but we didn't see it so it's only speculation. But he was messed up and bleeding from his noggin. Before the p.s. (i'm abbrieviating police-soldiers from now on) started to advance it seemed like about 3,000 of them had gathered, and immediately before they advanced the started banging their shields in unison and chanting some kind psyche-out/union song, before they charged in and starting seeling off streets, subway exits, and buildings. It was all very easy to follow this, and it wasn't even that dangerous, except for the fact we didn't know what they were protesting and I remembered getting one of those warnings from the US embassy earlier iin the week in my inbox which I neglected to read as usual. But, nobody was looking at us or telling us off, except one irate, but stern-faced freak who was staring at my friend like he was either going to try to ass-rape him or bite off a chunk of his face. So, we advanced and followed it for several blocks, usually the p.s. advanced and chased back the protestors, except for when the protesters started throwing rocks and especially the maltov cocktails which appeared to be quite dangerous. I didn't see anybody on fire, but they were making a statement, and I read that they weren't used in any demostrations in Korea for the last 11 years. But, mostly the soldiers were pretty loose and didn't see to be using force unless they caught someone who was too bold, or crazy, or they cornered them (this may be an issue, though). And, when i did see a man who looked as it was hit (it only happened 2 or 3 times) it appeared as though the man was also attacking the soldiers. But, although I saw alot of it, i was too far away to see the real shi*. I wasn't as close as the tv. cameras, usually, as it took a while to figure out it wasn't an anti-american affair. I suppose in the immediate clashes between p.s. and protesters there probably was more brutality than i witnessed. It was still going on as we left, and as we left we crossed sides from the p.s. to the protestors; and the protestors were still coming, but seemed like they had lost steam, while the p.s. were coming on in numbers with organized unity, shields, and metal poles. The whole time there was quite a massive crowd watching; some were just watching, others were excited and chattering away, some where chanting stuff about the president, and a few girls we saw were crying. But, mostly everyone was following the excitement, on a boring, rainy, late Sunday afternoon. All in all it was quite a unique, experience - aren't these kind of things what used to happen America in the late 60's and early 70's? We eventually found out that most of the protestors were workers and students, and my friend pointed out that it must be tough for some of the p.s. to attack friends and other people they might know. Although, i did read that some the p.s. supposedly corned some students and beat them down; but i didn't see it. On a sidenote, i did see a protester (i think) walking around in Myeong-deong carrying a steal pole he must have taken from the street; unless, it was an p.s. who changed clothes and wanted to walk around like Hack-Saw Jim Duggan with his two-by-four. That was also the funny part though, two or three blocks away, it looked as if people didn't even know that it was going on; people were strolling around just like usual, jamming the hip Sunday hangout. It was another world, where buying 100,000 won and up shirts and stylin' in your leather is expected. I must add, that there's lots of hotties there too, but how could both of the sushi places be closed on the sameday. Maybe I should have used two sentences to say that-