Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mayorgc]

I tried to look it up in wikipedia and yahoo, but no dice.

What exactly happened and what was the fallout?

I know it got really sketchy for a bit.

are there any links to news stories about it?

[edit]

oh sh!t, maybe i got my details wrong. Was it even a tank? I remember hearing about 2 korean girls getting run over by some military vehicle. This was like 2002

[bundangbabo]

http://ieas.berkeley.edu/cks/k12/girling_tank.doc

http://usinkorea.org/1st/TRAGEDY/index.html

[Smee]

Another good source on that is from ROK Drop:
http://rokdrop.com/2008/06/13/gi-myths-the-2002-armored-vehicle-accident/

[mayorgc]

sh!t, that was pretty intense reading.

What about the 1995 subway incident. There's a mention in the article that a u.s soldier and his K-wife got into a giant 50 man rumble. does anybody have info on it?

[Sapa]

the rokdrop article is really good reading. very interesting. to anyone who was around at the time, what was the atmosphere like? did you encounter anything negative or anti-foreigner?

[Sapa]

[Benicio]

It was an intense time. As the article states, it was an orgy of anti-Americanism!
Luckily, I had no attacks on me. I just had to endure people all around, including my own students, repeat these ridiculous lies and distortions of what really happened because they read it on the Internet or their senior/teacher/told them and they totally believed it.
Such ridiculous lies were spread like the American soldiers in the large military vehicle intentionally ran over the 2 school girls and then the soldiers cheered and "celebrated their kill".
It was ridiculously asinine, but once the overly gullible public started believing it, it was pretty much impossible to get them to think rationally.

If you were here this past spring/summer, then you witnessed the exact same sort of thing with the stupid Anti-US beef protests.

There's a mix of factors that really kick these things out of control:
1) the pro-North Korean, anti-American groups are very adept at seizing on "incidents", real or imagined, very quickly and spreading their versions of what happened over the Internet and other networks. Overnight, their line of thought is disseminated over the populace, and the gullible public believe it fully because they "read it on the Internet" or "saw it in the newspaper".
2) the US embassy and military continually bungle any attempts at public relations to let people know the truth. It used to be that they thought these lies were so ridiculous that no sane person would believe them. Now that we know that isn't true, the embassy/military waits too late and does a half @$$ed job of getting the real information out there. By then, it is too late. The public has already had their opinion fed to them and the damage has been done.
3) Koreans have a very strong victim complex. Whether it be the US, Japan or anyone else, Koreans believe they have been and continue to be victimized by others. Due to this, they are especially prone to quickly and easily believing any story about evil Americans & Japanese doing terrible things to "innocent" Koreans.
No matter how ridiculous the lie is, if they get that version of the story first, they will believe it and shut out any information to the contrary.

It seems the best we can hope for is that there are no more "incidents" which the Anti-US commie groups can seize onto!

[Horangi Munshin]

I remember it well. The only near altercation I had (I'm not American, but who knows right?) was with a guy after I took a picture of Koreans happily trampling all over a huge U.S flag draped over the street, outside a McDonalds in Seomyeon (downtown Pusan). Lots of comments though!

I was actually relating the whole bullshit situation to a new teacher at school. The teachers were talking about what kind of restaurant to go to. They know I hate Hwae. They suggested beef. After I mentioned I'm wary of eating Korean beef, scared of mad cow. I remembered the mad cow nonsense, then the two girls thing.

[Benicio]

At that time, in 2002, every white person in Korea was labelled "American".

Of course, I now wonder how that is different from any other time!

I had several non-American friends get called "f***ing miguk" on the street at that time.

[Horangi Munshin]

Yep lost count on the effing USA comments. More dirty looks while I was with my fiancee.

On a positive note. While I was at the doctor getting a check-up a candle march to the army base went past. The doctor had dealings with the base and he had some choice words for the protestors. So not everyone in Korea was an idiot at the time.

[Unposter]

Lots of restaurants and bars had No American signs. Of course, by No American they meant anyone white regardless of nationality. I remember being refused entry to a restauarant on Chongno in Seoul while accompanied by my Korean wife. Of course, we just left. If they did not want my money, that is their problem. It did not take us more than five minutes to find another restaurant but it certainly leaves you with one of those WTF kind of feelings. The government did not do anything to hinder such discrimination either.

[Benicio]

The government knew/knows that they need to let the populace throw these cathartic temper tantrums every once in a while to let out the stress.

However, they always seem to let it go too far.

In 2002, after months of the anti-American orgy, the US government/military started taking a serious look into and questioning "why are we here protecting people who hate us so much and seem to not want us here?", then the Joint Chiefs of Staff actually floated the idea of a troop pullout with the statement "we will not stay where we are not wanted". Then, the Korean government finally stepped in to put a lid on the protests and hatred.

Last year, in the anti-US beef protests, when the news started getting to the outside world that the Korean people had shut down their government and clogged their streets with daily protests over ridiculous lies that no sane person should believe, then the government and the silent, sane population started to get embarassed that these fools in the streets were making Korea look very ignorant to the rest of the world. That's when they really stepped in and tried to put a stop to the insanity.

It's a shame they didn't step in much earlier in both situations!

[Smee]

Maybe Korea should apologize for the brou-haha.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2008/06/137_26181.html

[FUBAR]

[ryoga013]