Korea seems to look at the law and ?€œwhat is right?€? as not necessarily always being one and the same. Include foreigners in the equation and the foreigner will always loose. To rely on any sort of impartial blind justice in Korea is to dig a hole and hope that you will discover a diamond mine-it just is not going to happen.

I certainly agree that those people should be punished but the fact remains that they won?€™t. Korea is not an egalitarian society nor will it become one in the foreseeable future. Fortunately these types of incidents do not occur frequently. Until Korea recognizes the fact that the rights of foreigners in Korea need to be protected too, the advice posted earlier to swallow your pride and walk away seems to the be the wisest.

Curious — No, I wan’t. What other blog were you referring to?

Marmot, were you into journalism before you started working at the Chosun? That other blog you linked to gives that impression.

Mark, over at Gardner in Korea, posted a line a few days back that got me to do some heavy thinking. ( I know, thats unusual in itself.). Frustrated with dealing with the exchange, [its] just more evidence of shady dealing over …

In the early 90s, a foreign insurance company, which had offices in Seoul and other parts of æ?‰?‡´-land [that's ????¹?, abduction, for the riff-raff]. The HQ decided to send an auditor, first to put his big honkey nose in the accounts, which were, ahhhh, suspect, and to prevent any further misappropriation of funds. When this guy arrived in the Country of soju-induced Morning Calm, he found something akeen to a situation: the *union* [that's Korean slang for thugs] had taken over the premises, wrecked the place, and kidnapped the CEO. One of their demands was that the foreign owner recalled the auditor, thank you very much, and let’s go back to graft work. That cheeky enough?

That auditor left, yes. In 2000 or thereabouts. Somehow, the thugs were not used to have people tell them no. Oh well, there’s no age limit on learning tough lessons…

I’m not doubting you about Koreans being abducted by other Koerans and nothing much happening, but I’ve never heard that before. It could be because I don’thave the Korean language skills to follow the Korean language press, but could you give me some links to examples of this — similar to either the coast guard sea episode or the 2002 subway incident.

I can take me time and plough through Korean language articles from the press or elsewhere if I have one, but it is mostly a waste of time for me to try to dig the material up on the internet starting from scratch.

Off the top of my head, I can see parallels between an event like the 2002 (or was it 2001) US Chamber of Commerce seige and what Korean unions sometimes do to Korean companies, but as far as I can remember, the workers in those situations were immediately kicked out of the offices and not held by the protesters. I believe it was the same with the 2002 hospital seige that indirectly got connected to the subway incident when the riot police rushed the two soldiers there to be with reenforcements and then because Suh was taken there for treatment.

I really can’t think of any examples I’ve read of Koreans taking hostage for a significant period of time another Korean and holding them though I can think of many examples of people being mobbed — the local politician in the district getting the nuclear waste dump who went to the Buddhist temple comes to mind quickly.

I’d be especially suprised to find examples where Koreans took a Korean law enforcement person and held them and the Korean law did little more than shrug its shoulders.

It’s an interesting topic…

Cause they’re weak, corrupt, and since the country moved towards democracy, it is not PC to have the police hit students, even they they abduct a worker, crucify and torture him.

Remember the last time the po-lice had to invest Yonsei? The outcry? There’s nothing remotely cultural in this abduction business. It’s just a knowledge of the weaknesses of the judicial system. When money’s not involved, we be fine. aka ?°° ?§¸?…”…