Anybody else read this piece and think, gee, we’ve got the makings of some good movie material right here:
Investigations by Korean prosecutors have revealed that crime syndicates like the Japanese yakuza and Hong Kong triads have begun directly smuggling drugs into Korea in order to make the country, which used to be regarded as a transit point for narcotics, a major drug market. It was also revealed that local crime organizations have begun full-scale involvement in the drug trade.
In relation to this, the Seoul District Public Prosecutors’ Office disclosed Monday that in the past year, it arrested 37 members of 14 local and Japanese organized crime syndicates for drug-related offenses, detaining 24 and booking five people without detention.
Read the rest on your own. I was kind of surprised that no mention was made of the Russian mafia. The Russians have been involved in smuggling drugs into Busan (among their other businesses here) for some time now, and then there was that hit they put on another Russian in Busan in April 2003 (although that might not have been about drugs).
To pick up on what the Nomad said, what this means is that the ESL teachers are going to have to get their asses organized now lest they get pushed out of the market.
Another interesting question this raises is how much of the methamphetamines being smuggled in to Korea by the yakuza (or the triads or Russians, for that matter) actually originated in North Korea. Something to ponder.
14 Comments
Maybe they should hire a couple of Singaporean judges as legal advisors.
Another interesting question about which inquiring minds want to to know is how many of the “Japanese yakuza” are actually Korean gangsters operating out of Japanm as a significant portion of so-called yakuza are Korean-Japanese.
Good God. Drugs, smuggling, gangsters, homelessness, divorce, infidelity…Korea is becoming more and more like the good ole US of A.
The Thug In You and Me
Marmot questions the wide-eyed innocence of news reports about organized crime in the entire east Asian region. There is the argument, that organized crime in this region is fourth pillar of the foundation on which Asian society is built. On this view,…
On the other hand, 400 years of colonial worldwide exploitation is the pillar foundation upon which most Western society was built. A small group of white imperialist European powers basically ganged up on the rest of the world.
The United States alone was built on 200 years of human trafficking also known as institutional slavery, the side effects of which are still being felt to this very day. A lesser known corollary to the history of slavery in the Americas was the exploitation of Chinese in the building of the railroads in the US and subjugation to harsh labor under the lash in the sugar cane plantations of the Carribean.
Then there’s the robber barons, Tammany Hall, and let’s not even get into the glorification of the Mafia via Sopranos, ‘The Godfather’ and novels written by Mario Puzo or why the FBI is also known as ‘forever bustin Italians’.
Then there’s that movie ‘Gangs of New York’ where you can watch 2 hours of Irish who just wanted to escape the potato famine in the Old Country confronted by bloodbaths with menacing, entrenched Anglos in the New World. While they are slicing off each others limbs, has-been rocker Bono sings in the background ‘these are the hands….that built Amerikaaa’.
Hollywood does a pretty decent job of romanticizing and glorifying the uglier aspects of white people’s history. But that’s ok, right? My dear expat, because it protects your lily white reputation and white priviledge.
Bluejives - We know by now that you hate white people and that this hatred colors everything you do and informs all of your “thoughts”. Please spare us the rantings now and say something smart, original or relevant to Korea.
Slim,
I do not hate white people.
I don’t go around wearing a bedsheet burning crosses on white people’s lawns at night, lynching white people, spray-painting certain symbols on white people’s churchs or homes, stuffing lots of white people into prisons and condemning lots of white people to death row. I am not a cop that goes around profiling white people because they are white. I do not go around denying business loans or home mortgages to white people because they are white. I do not structure society so that lots and lots of white people are forced to live in dangerous, crime infested housing projects in the inner cities, deny the children of whites proper access to quality education, while I live in my gated community in the surburbs. I do not go around calling white people names, shooting at white people during hunting seasons, forcing white people to sit in the back of the bus, condemning white people via all non-white juries, and just generally subjugating white people to a perpetual social pariah status in society.
I do find white people annoying and quite often detrimental to the wellbeing of non-white peoples.
BTW, I do not use the term ‘Caucasian’.
In 1775 Johann F. Blumenbach, who conducted studies of physical anthropology coined the term Caucasian. He categorized the world’s people based both physical abilities and moral qualities in a racial hierarchy; placed Caucasians on the top of the racial hierarchy and Africans at the bottom. He saw this as the primordial human type, and the other races degenerated from this type as a result of adaptation to different environmental conditions Blumenbach concluded that humankind could be divided into five classifications: Caucasian, Mongoloid, Ethiopian, American, and Malay.
His rationale and justification for the choice of the word ‘Caucasian’ was aesthetics!
“I have taken the name from Mount Caucasus because it produces the most beautiful race of men. I have not observed a single ugly face in that country in either sex. Nature has lavished upon the women beauties which are not seen elsewhere. I consider it impossible to look at them without loving them.”
[On the Natural Variety of Mankind?€™ in The Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach 1775]
He saw this as the primordial human type, and the other races degenerated from this type as a result of adaptation to different environmental conditions.
By the 19th century, race scientists settled on the term “Caucasians”, first used as a synonym for Europeans in 1807, probably because the term’s
association with the Near East and Greece suited white people’s desire to see themselves as having originated in the Golden Age of Classical Civilization.
I do find white people annoying and quite often detrimental to the wellbeing of non-white peoples.
Well, I happened to find trolls — regardless of color — to be detrimental to my weblog. I suggest you take your issues to a different forum. Sorry.
Shame, too. I actually agree with most of what you say.
As an unapologetic racist, bluejives, you have a lot more in common with the types of white people you describe, if you were ever honest enough to admit it. The KKKorean in you would be happy to know that in South Korea from 2001-04, my whiteness (or foreignness) kept me from being able to get a telephone or Internet account without a Korean sponsor — a small victory for the Yellow Man, I guess. However flawed or incomplete the U.S. Civil Rights movement has been, at least America HAS one. Someday when South Korea begins trying to overcome endemic and institutionalised racism, it will have my support. I hope you are shunning all evil things created by (dead) white men, not merely logic and linear thinking.
In the meantime, here is a website whose attitudes, rhetorical skills and intellectual honesty match yours perfectly, and where you might find a woman perfect for you:
http://www.bigbadchinesemama.com
Marmot, you are still too troll tolerant. This guy should have been PNG after his second race-baiting post.
Slim — I might be too troll tolerant, but I don’t like to ban people from commenting, and like I said, I think he did raise a lot of good points. That being said, if anyone is going to rant on this blog, it’s going to be ME (or my guest bloggers). If the commenter in question would like to rant, he should set up his own site with his own money and rant to his heart’s content.
Anyway, given that he has now been banned, I’d prefer that people not take shots at him, as he is no longer in a position to defend himself. Thank you.
PS: I was chatting with Charlie of Budaechigae earlier, and he gave me some good ideas about comment management that I’ll probably be playing around with.
Thanks, Marmot. I’ve always felt you are far too fair-minded a guy to suffer such defilement of your site.
Just wanted to point to the obvious.
Many young Christians fail at proselytizing, because they try to prove to non-believers that “they”(christians) are correct and hence the non-believers are incorrect. Well, I suppose even wiser Christians try to do the same, but the difference between a successful missionary and a failure is that the successful missionary adapts and assimiliates himself to the culture around him. The successful missionary developes perfect empathy to his target audience. (and I mean modern “western” missionaries, not the old fashioned saber and musket carrying ones)
If you want to rant and blow steam and reduce your stress levels go ahead. If you want to “prove” your intellectual superiority, heck, what do I care? But if you want to make the world a better place, then you might want to be more tactful. If you want to make the world a more tolerant place, then the message should also be equally tolerant, and more imporantly forgiving, patient, and understanding. The point I’m making, is that I hope that you are writing to convince others to adapt a better life philosophy rather than proving your superior moral/intellectual stance.
The more mature “brother” should act more maturely.
Tis the Christmas season, so I can’t help myself here.
I hope the blog doesn’t become a private page of clone-mind bloggers. I find that reading only the material I fancy makes me a more provincial-minded and keeps my mind dull.
But then again, aren’t we really all here so that we can bash and clash and read up about all these eclectic Asian porn news?
Merry belated Christmas folks, and happy New Kwanzannukah Year~
The point I?€™m making, is that I hope that you are writing to convince others to adapt a better life philosophy rather than proving your superior moral/intellectual stance.
Neither one is the point of this blog. I have no interest in convincing anyone to adapt a better life or make the world a more tolerant place. All I do is post crap I find important, interesting or both.
I hope the blog doesn?€™t become a private page of clone-mind bloggers. I find that reading only the material I fancy makes me a more provincial-minded and keeps my mind dull.
Agreed 100 percent. The recent measure was taken not because I disagreed with the poster. Actually, I agreed with him more often than not. And he was clearly a smart guy. The problem, as far as I was concerned, was two-fold. Firstly, he was what is called in the blogging business a “troll,” meaning that his comments were being made not so much with the intention of contributing to dialogue, but with the intention of provoking certain responses. Moreover, a lot of his comments were simply off topic. I mean, why bitch about conditions in the US on a Korea blog? I mean, if I were to go onto Korean-American forums where they are discussing issues of racism in US society and bitch about the way Koreans treat 3D workers, what would be the point? Not really pertinent to their discussion, is it? Secondly, he seemed to have some issues — which he made quite clear — that I didn’t really care to deal with on my website. Anyway, I like to refer people to this post on comment policy: http://www.rightwingnews.com/a.....PHP#002383
Blogs, after all, are PERSONAL websites, and the comments sections are kind of like an open party at my home. All are welcome, but good party banter is always a plus, but if you start fighting with other guests and/or piss on my rug, I reserve the right to show you the door. Frankly, I think I’m quite generous with my comments policy, so much so that I get complaints via email that my comments threads are a little too wild at times.
Marm,
Point well taken. I come here to be entertained as well as informed. I hope you have seen that I have deliberately left the “you” in my previous posting rather ambiguous in a very Clintonian way.
I hope certain trolls will also ponder at my christmas message.