If you have been
keeping up on kvetchpat news,
you would have discovered the posting of a video of several Western (white) men
harassing a drunk, Korean woman at a nightclub. Max Fischer wrote about this after
discovering it through the Korean media after it was posted on Facebook. Then,
it spread to several other English news outlets, the usual kvetchpat watering
holes, and other Korea related blogs.
Recently, Max
Fischer wrote an update saying that he had seen alternate footage of the same
scene from the video. He falsely concluded that because there were several
takes of the scene that the whole video was acting. Wrong. I do believe that
the makers of this video re-shot the scene because they were making a movie and
wanted to get the "right" effect. The makers had already rehearsed
how they wanted it to play out and wanted to get the desired response from
their victim, so of course, they would repeat the same dialogue. And of course,
a woman with limited English skills who was drunk would repeat the only English
she knew how to respond with. There was a commercial in Korea a few years back
making fun of how mindless some Koreans can be when learning English. In the
commercial, a young Korean man gets hit by a car. A Western (white) driver
comes out and asks, "How are you?" The young Korean responds,
"I'm fine and you?" when he has just been hit by a car. The Western
man looks at him bewildered. This commercial reflects how some foreign speakers
will respond the same way to certain questions because that is all they know to
say. It was obvious from the video that the Korean woman's English was not
great.
I know that the
makers hope this movie idea will exonerate them, but I know much better. Just
because the creators were shooting a movie does not mean that there were no
victims involved. This was not a standard filming where ALL actors knew they
were going to be filmed and were willing participants of the movie. The young,
drunk Korean woman was not conscious enough to make that decision. The other
participants of the movie were. They set out to shoot a movie degrading Korean
women and found an easy target. "Strong men" who felt empowered to
approach a Korean woman as a group, but would be too cowardly if there was one
more Korean woman. The young Korean woman in the video was alone with very few
people around her. It was a loud nightclub, so unless you were close, I don't
think you would have been able to catch on to their conversation and how
degrading it was even if you spoke fluent English, which many Koreans don't.
These guys AMBUSHED this lone, drunk Korean woman because they wanted to use
her in a fetish video degrading Korean women. These guys were trying to do
something similar to "Black Out Korea" by finding people they could
humiliate by capturing their image on camera. They looked for a drunk Korean
woman who was alone that they could BAIT into their degrading scheme. I would
not be surprised if there are other videos like this. I know that the creators
of this video hope that the pretense of shooting a movie will get people to
back off so that they can continue to be whiny ESL teachers who hate on Korea
and victimize unwitting, probably drunk Korean women. But I have news for you
guys. It doesn't.
This whole scenario
reminds me of Joe Francis and his "Girls Gone Wild", an American
video series that showed women taking their top off in public. Now, I'm sure
that there were some women who did this voluntarily out of some exhibitionist
streak, but there were actually others who were ambushed by the crew by having
their tops pulled up without their consent. There was a class action suit made
by a woman who did not realize that she was on one of their videos after one of
the crew members pulled up her shirt. There were testimonies from other
witnesses that said that they had had the same thing done to them or seen it
happen to someone else. They won the lawsuit and Joe Francis and company had to
pay a lot of money. Were there several takes in the shooting of this series?
Yes, because the videos did contain outtakes that were added to another video.
I only saw commercials of these videos with the boobs blurred out. Some of the
women in this lawsuit were drunk as were others. Just because something is a
movie doesn't mean that there are no victims. Child pornography is one example.
Filming sexual contact without the other party knowing is another. I'm pretty
sure that the drunk, Korean woman in that video was not able to give her
consent because she was drunk. If someone made you sign a contract while you
were drunk, should it be legally admissible? Absolutely not.
The lengths that
some kvetchpats will go to in order to "protect" their own. The more
you reinforce this kind of behavior, the more it will be perpetuated. The
mentality that justified "Black Out Korea" is the same one that
fueled this video. Only these guys took it a big step further. Who do you think
it hurts? You can continue to blame the Korean public for being
"xenophobic", but until you take responsibility for yourself, then
nothing will change. This is the kind of mentality that kvetchpats love to
trash Korea for, but unfortunately, they aren't willing to be self-critical and
prove to be the biggest hypocrites of all while exalting how multicultural and
tolerant their own countries are. Even if that were the case, they certainly
aren't the best examples of that from their own country. Koreans are
self-critical for the most part when a Korean does something bad overseas, so
netizens will criticize that person for shaming the country instead of choosing
to blame it on the environment or the victim. Just goes to show that until
kvetchpats take responsibility for their behavior and hold others accountable
in their community, they will continue to perpetuate the cycle wondering why
they don't get respect, trashing those who have a good time in Korea as Korea
apologists. I've watched some videos of people who had a great time in Korea
and what I've noticed is that they actually make an effort to understand Korean
people and culture and learn the language as well. I can't really say that
about kvetchpats who take no responsibility for their bitter and negative
attitude. It is not Korea that makes you such a negative and toxic person. It's
you. You control how you choose to live your life and the fact that you
continue to live as a bitter and hateful person in a country that you are
miserable in says a whole lot about you. You CHOOSE to LIVE in Korea and yet
you complain about what a miserable life you have.
The only thing that
the video makers are sorry for is getting caught and they haven't even
apologized for taking part in the video. It was just a movie, they say as a
lame excuse. I know that they would continue to make such videos if they
weren't caught. They probably thought that they could make a bunch of videos
that would be semi-anonymous and indistinguishable from the rest of Youtube.
Videos that they could enjoy with their kvetchpat buddies, making fun of how
stupid Korean women are and trashing Korean society as a whole. Only it
backfired in their case and they received a lot of backlash. Now, they are
really scared for their jobs and life in Korea. But as scared as these cowards
may be, they don't know a hundredth of the pain that the young woman in the
video is suffering. Her face was exposed and this will negatively affect her
career and marital prospects. No respectable Korean family will want her to
marry into their family even though she did nothing wrong in the video. She was
drunk at the wrong place and the wrong time. I know of Korean women who lost
job offers after receiving negative media coverage, so it's not a stretch to
say that this is likely for her. Those ESL cowards did not reveal their entire
face and I'm sure that multiple takes were done to give them some anonymity in
the videos. They set out for a nightclub in Seoul where they planned to target
a drunk and unassuming Korean woman that they could degrade with their antics.
They kept retaking each scene until they got what they wanted. The Korean woman
did not speak much English. She was drunk, so it is highly plausible that she
would repeat the same answers to the same comments and gestures. If you don't
speak a language well, that is what you are going to do because that is all you
will know how to do. This actually makes it MUCH WORSE than if they were
randomly at a club with a camera and just being spontaneous. They actually
PLANNED this CALCULATED ASSAULT in order to create a video that they could use
to get off on degrading Korean women. It's like Dave's ESL on steroids. Dave's
is a place many kvetchpats go to in order to get off on degrading Koreans for
their own twisted pleasure, because they are living miserable lives in Korea
and choose to blame Korea instead of their own bad attitudes.
Now, these cowards
are scared because they got their hand caught in the cookie jar. They are
afraid of being discovered by their co-workers and Korean "friends".
That is what they have most to be afraid of. Because most people watching these
videos will not know them or be able to recognize them on the street. But the
people that see them everyday or on occasion will have enough familiarity with
their face that they will be able to put the pieces together. So I have news
for you cowards. Be afraid. Be very afraid. If you are really that scared, you
can always get plastic surgery like you degraded the Korean woman into doing.
Get plastic surgery and stop being cowards. How does that feel, idiots? Plastic
surgery or not, you know these guys will continue to keep looking over their
shoulder the whole time they are in Korea and maybe afterwards. Frankly, I
don't understand why they didn't just let this thing blow over. Now, they have
left a big electronic trail with a number of people. You have one
"reporter", Sam Power, writing for the English edition of a Korean
newspaper vouching for them before any "evidence" showed of a film,
which makes me think that he actually knows them as a friend or is just really
invested in the expat image. If he is as fictitious a character as some on
Marmot's Hole claim, I bet he is someone that works for the newspaper, but
chooses to mask his identity. Someone should really check this out. You have
Max Fischer writing about how he saw a clip of several takes of the same scene,
which does not contradict that the woman was still a victim. You have a fake
Facebook profile of a "Korean film director" who supposedly shot the
movie. It is so easy to make up a fake Facebook profile and I don't know how
that could be taken as evidence of a "Korean movie director". Of
course, there was an exchange about making the movie. They had been planning it
all along. Anyhow, I am glad that the video got out and that part of the
cowards' faces were shown so that their acquaintances can more easily identify
them. I am glad that there are a number of copies of the video on Youtube, The
Washington Post, and other media sites as well as blogs.
You think you got
away with this? You didn't. You think that you can stay in Korea and enjoy your
miserable life here? You can't. As hellish as your life may have been before,
it will get even more hellish like a raging inferno that you cannot control. That
is what happens to people who have their conscience awakened with a rude
awakening. And for guys like these who had a very low mentality to start with,
I am pretty sure it was a VERY rude awakening. The poor young woman did not ask
to be part of this. You made her. You chose to act like idiots and you need to
face the consequences. YOU did this to YOURSELVES and you cannot blame Korea
for that. Keep living in Korea looking over your shoulder because at some point
the truth will come out. You have no idea how much you have hurt others a
thousand times more than the fear that you are feeling. She is someone's
daughter, granddaughter, and perhaps sister. How do you think she feels and how
do you think her family and friends feel after she was degraded and humiliated
by you? What makes you more important than the young woman you harassed? What
gives you the right to stay in a country where you assault and degrade its
people? What gives you the right to earn a living in this country that you hate
and despise and degrade for your own pleasure, influencing young Korean minds?
I'm pretty sure the young woman has lost her career at this point, so what
makes you better than her? Why should Korean parents trust their children to
you? Korean teachers are respected for the most part. English teachers don't
have that reputation because so many of you guys have frankly MESSED IT UP.
That was not the case in the 60's with Fulbright Scholars who actually gave a
damn about the job, but unfortunately, too many people look to make money from
hagwons and do not want to invest the time and money to vet English teachers
properly. If nothing more happened than you guys losing your teaching jobs and
having to leave Korea, then you should consider yourselves very lucky. Why are
you in Korea if you hate it that much? Consider it a blessing that you are able
to go back to your multicultural and progressive America or whatever country
you came from so that you can live amazing and wonderful lives. But for some
reason, I don't think your life in your home countries would be that great,
either. The location may change, but YOU are STILL the SAME PERSON. Koreans may
forget and so may other people, but God never forgets and you will get what is
coming to you long after you think that everything has blown over.
I am sure that the
young woman has a case and is able to sue you. I am sure that your school also
have cause as well. Korea is not your playground, so you better shape up or get
out. The police can be made aware of this even if no private party intervenes
and they have every right to subpoena Facebook and other sites for this
information. Korea has a highly skilled Internet agency that is trained to root
out people like you. You should be jailed for harassment and invasion of
privacy, both of which are against the law in Korea.