Suwon mayor Kim Yong-seo (GNP) and a party of seven or eight other Suwon officials are getting lambasted by Suwon citizens, netizens and the Uri Party for their “disgraceful” behavior in Doha, the Qatari capital hosting the Asian Games.
According to an exclusive report by NoCut News, the party showed up at the Korean men’s basketball game on Monday, but they seemed to have little interest in what was going on the floor. Instead, some in the group approached a person who appeared to be a Korean expat and asked, “Isn’t there a place with women around here? Isn’t there a place that sells alcohol?”
The legal system of Qatar, based on Wahabi tradition, strictly bans alcohol and female hosts.
Anyway, when the Korean expat responded that there were no such places in Doha, the party said, “Well, we’re heading to Dubai tomorrow or the next day. We’ll stay there for two days and have fun.”
Dubai, a mere 50-minute flight away, permits the sort of extracurricular activities in which the Suwon officials supposedly expressed interest.
Said NoCut News:
The athletes are playing hard for the honor of the fatherland, while the expats came to the stadium to root for their country’s team despite their busy schedules, yet the civil servants who came all the way from Korea were looking for “wine and women” without interest in the games.
When one expat asked the group if they’d come on Suwon City’s dime, they said no—sort of—and left.
The man who guided them around Doha said he felt uncomfortable because the group kept making comments of a sexual nature (”You’re pretty,” etc.) to local women. He said the officials would have been arrested on the spot had the Qataris understood Korean.
Or so claimed NoCut News.
The Suwon officials were in Dubai as of Tuesday.
Needless to say, the Korean public is not amused. The Suwon homepage was flooded by so many outraged netizens that as of 4:00 p.m. you couldn’t access it.
Suwon City Hall sent a statement to NoCut News saying the story was completely false and that the local guide, when asked about the report, said he never heard the officials say such things.
The Uri Party released a statement demanding an explanation. It also pointed out that the Grand National Party seems to have a problem with sexual harassment—in addition to much publicized reports of sexual harassment involving GNP lawmakers (like this), the party was just coming off a scandal in which some 20 members of the GNP-dominated Gyeonggi-do Assembly got in trouble for allegedly partying with Filipino women at high-class drinking establishments in Manila… when they were supposed to be studying regional governments in developed nations.
30 Comments
Bright guys! Off to a Muslim city to get laid and drunk. UAE would work but Qatar?
By planting their Taeguki the honor of the Vaterland is enhanced, provided the girls don’t snigger at it.
Somehow it’s the Japanese fault. (Hopefully this is better than the fifth post.)
Pfft, stupid ajossi’s. All they had to do was check out worldsexguide.com and they’d be fine. But nooooooooooo.
Perhaps they saw Ms. Urata in action and got all horned up….
Morons. I have had the displeasure of working with government officials in Korea and most of them are dolts!
Ironically, Pawi is silent about this one.
Of course it’s not true, but if it were, it would be the fault of USFK and expats for setting a bad example for innocent Koreans.
LOL “He said the officials would have been arrested on the spot had the Qataris understood Korean.” No, I think they would have had an eye gouged out.
These guys strike me as typical provincial dumbasses. In the big scheme of things it’s not as offensive as Uri Party Chairman Kim Geun-tae dancing with North Korean waitresses though.
Sextraterritorialism.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi can be as outrageous as any place to be found in Korea in the 70s and 80s. Our heros would have had little trouble finding venues to spend public funds.
How reliable are the expats who are accusing the Suwon officials?
The better question is how reliable is the media? When it is compulsory for each reporter to churn out a story a day, hyperbole abounds.
How so? Are you suggesting that the witnesses don’t exist and that the incident never took place? We’ll know for sure if and once the Suwon officials sue the reporters for libel.
If it turns out that Nocut News posted a wrong accounting of this story, then they should be held criminally liable and become “Cut-off News”.
One way or another, the truth shall come out in time.
It took until post number 12 to come up with some skepticism (I guess after all, it’s just Korean on Korean story, thus doesn’t deserve the same scrutiny on the story if this was Koreans on foreigners story).
cm, you’re twisting the truth…
…skepticism first came in post number 11.
That is exactly what I am saying. Mr. Carr could probably lend his expertise to this. Since when does a journalist have to divulge their sources? Do you believe what the Korean media puts out? Koreans generally don’t. Come on how long have you been on the ROK?
There are three possiblities here:
1) The story could be true.
2) The story could be a complete lie.
3) The story could be true, but in a way it’s a lie because it’s a relished truth, as in tabloid gossip truth.
Nobody knows for sure, at this point.
We treat “Stupid foreigner tricks” in the Korean media with a healthy dose of skepticism (as should be considering the past record of the media in the ROK).
But what about when “Stupid local people tricks” hit the local media?
Don’t let anyone tell you only foreigners in Korea get picked on.
I am inclined to believe the story, if only because it is completely, 100%, fully and totally in line with behavior from Korean men.
Now, if the story said “Suwon mayor complemented for his culturally sensitive, humble and polite disposition”, well, then I’d have to go ahead and call bullshit.
True there was not a lot of skepticism - but on the same token there was not a lot of seriousness either.
The stupid foreigner tricks gets pretty much the same treatment…making jokes and generalizations about the people who make themselves a target.
Personally, I am waiting to see what comes of this one if anything - it seems just a little too over the top. Can anybody really be that stupid?
Hard to say at this point who’s telling the truth, but NoCut News isn’t letting up.
Interestingly enough, it does appear that there are places in Doha where one can have a drink and party with the local lasses.
Oh, and since we are talking about Qatari women, this is a nice photo of a lovely Qatari maiden, taken by this dude.
I think it’s time the ROK government cut off taxpayer funded overseas travel allowances for civil servants and lawmakers.
Hmmm. Who could be to blame for this one? Oh hell, let’s just blame the US and Japan again. After all, Koreans have shown time and time again that they are absolute angels when visiting other countries. No Korean, especially, a Korean man would ever proposition or even flirt with a woman from a different ethnic background. Only non-Koreans do that, common people aren’t you able to see it for yourselves?
Schwing!
Robert, that dude is an international celebrity.
http://www.apohikingsociety.org/main.shtml
“In October of 1987, during their annual US tour, the APO became the first Filipino pop artists to perform at the Main Hall of New York’s prestigious Carnegie Hall. They also performed at the equally prestigious Massey Hall in Toronto, Canada’s music capital. Both concerts, as well as the other shows held during that particular concert tour, were sold out. The APO were also the first Filipino artists to perform in a public concert in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In 1987, they were one of the first Filipino artists to be recorded on compact disc. And in 1994, they were awarded the first Dangal ng Musikang Pilipino by Awit Awards - the Filipino equivalent of the Grammy. They have also been conferred the Tanglaw Ng Lahi Award, the highest accolade given by Jesuits in the field of culture and arts.
The APO also earned international recognition for Jim Paredes’ anthem on the bloodless Philippine revolution in 1986. “Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo” was recorded by 15 Filipino artists in April 1986. A few months later, the English version “A New and Better Way” was launched in Australia. In February 1987, the first anniversary of the Philippines’ People Power revolution, the song was released in London, England. The lyrics of the song are embedded on a wall of Our Lady of Edsa Shrine, the center of the revolution.”
Rest assured that there is no possibility whatsoever of Qatari women being hired out as escorts to some Korean civil service numpties. A better wage would be on the sun not setting today.
“The Suwon homepage was flooded by so many outraged netizens that as of 4:00 p.m. you couldn’t access it.”
Wow…that’s something to think about.
Yeah, an Arab call girl…. Come on Marmot!
hardyandtiny, the reporter takes for granted that all the netizens were outraged. I’m sure many of them were just curious(see the story about the hagwon teacher).