YTN celebrates its victory against the barbarian hordes that were apparently ravaging the entertainment district in front of Hongik University. Since YTN’s Pulitzer-quality exposé and the ensuing decision by USFK command to designate the area “off-limits,” peace has reportedly returned to that strife-town community and local residents have begun rebuilding their shattered lives.
I translate this heartwarming tale of paradise regained for the Korean-impaired.
In connection to a YTN broadcast that there were frequent acts of outrageous behavior by some USFK soldiers in the entertainment district near Hongik University, USFK command has banned U.S. soldiers from the area in front of Hongik University.
Since U.S. soldiers stopped going to Hongdae, peace has returned to the area.
Reporter Lee Seung-yun took a look at the changed weekend scene in Hongdae, which used to be thronged with U.S. soldiers.
[Report]
A YTN report on Jan. 29 revealed the outrageous behavior of U.S. soldiers frequenting the area in front of Hongik University.
In connect with this, USFK commander Gen. B.B. Bell banned U.S. soldiers from entering the entertainment district in front of Hongik, saying that misbehavior by soldiers and excessive drinking was on the rise.
Accordingly, USFK soldiers cannot enter the Hongik University area between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. unless for specific duties.
[Reporter]
This was an entertainment alley that just a few days ago was thronged with U.S. soldiers.
Since the ban, it has become difficult to find U.S. soldiers here.
Police who have stepped up patrols in front of Hongik University following YTN’s broadcast said that since the ban, incidents involving foreigners have greatly decreased.
[Interview: Lt. Park Du-hyeon, Mapo Police Station, Hongik Patrol]
“Since the ban, the area in front of Hongik University has maintained a state of very serene public order. After the YTN report, we’ve been stepping up regular patrols in the high-incident period of midnight to 4:00 a.m.”The Hongdae businesses that banned U.S. soldiers because of misbehavior by drunk servicemen say that peace has returned, and the mood is a joyous one.
[Interview: An employee of a Hongdae business]
“Since (U.S. soldiers) were getting drunk and fighting, it wasn’t good, so if they can’t come at all, the businesses welcome it.”Residents hope that with this measure, U.S. soldiers will develop an awareness for public order and come to harmonize with Koreans [Marmot's Note: Between the public drunkenness, peeing on the street and harassment of female clubbers, some might argue that GIs were doing just that before the ban).
[Interview: Lee Jae-uk, office worker]
“I think we’ll see less of drunk foreigners and Koreans fighting and bad scenes on the street.”[Interview: Kim Min-hee, university student]
“There naturally needs to be discipline taken for causing incidents, but U.S. soldiers, too, have the right and freedom to come here.”This is Lee Seung-yun [risungyoon@ytn.co.kr], YTN
See that? And not a single UN blue-helmet on the ground.
39 Comments
LOL on the “harmonize with Koreans” Marmot. All together now! Oh, we puke on the street and our girlfriends we beat, and we’re drunk as skunks before 8 p.m., we fall on our faces and pass out in strange places, why can’t you behave more like us?”
Yonhap has sunk to new lows.
It would be nice to see some “reciprocal” reporting, say, in the Los Angeles Times.
Poor Kim Min-hee. She is going to get put through the wringer for ’supporting’ the USFK.
This whole affair is so ridiculous that it is nothing more than troll bait to talk about it.
Yonhap has indeed sunk to a new low. We need a Chinatown in Korea so that the local news services will have someone else to beat upon with their razor-sharp insight.
She obviously didn’t get the memo.
She’ll be in big trouble if someone gets her photo online.
If YTN was serious about solving problems in Hongdae, the story would have been about all the underage drinking that goes on there.
I wonder if Miss Kim is really pawikirogi in drag?
Well, just spoke about this with my wife. She said the whole thing is BS. She pointed out that she often goes to Hongdae when she goes out with her friends and she told me she rarely sees any foreigners there, let alone drunken GIs. In fact, she went there with one of her friends yesterday while I was hanging out with one of my buddies and she told me there weren’t any foreigners there.
PS. She also told me that a friend of a friend was interviewed about GIs in Hongdae by a newspaper reporter. She really had nothing negative to say about them, but she was totally misquoted in the article as being critical of the soldiers.
but.. I live there…
The problem is too many newspapers……. Too many reporters…. Too many compulsory stories. One reason why Koreans don’t believe what they read in the rags.
Korean journalism is to journalism as Hwang Woo Suk is to science.
The problem is mass delusion, not too many papers.
I snuck into Hongik on the weekend and I noticed that people looked at ease, birds were chirping, butterflies were care-free, shops were prospering, bars were brimming with good times, girls could walk down the street without the hassle of constant whistling and ass-grabbing, guys slept in alleys without fear, and students were once again free to put on their Polo shirt, crank their LA Dodgers Starter cap a quarter turn counter-clockwise and listen to hip hop while smoking Marlboroughs and drinking their 1 free Budweiser that their cover charge provides.
“….peace has returned, and the mood is a joyous one….”
Hey! that idyllic phrase reminded me of the official anthem of the European Union — “Ode to Joy” (4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_(Beethoven)
And naturally that brings to mind the Ode’s use as the theme music for “Clockwork Orange”. How about an avant-garde Korean filmmaker doing a remake? With the same evocative Beethoven 9th soundtrack, but this time set in Korea.
Young Western actors as American soldiers, rampaging through the streets reprising the role of the young futuristic English hooligans! Maybe with expat English teachers (between jobs) playing the roles? It’s bound to be a hit.
We know that some Asians already like the music: “….The symphony seems to have taken particularly deep root in Japan, where it is widely performed during December as part of the annual celebration of the new year.”
And I thought the Ode worked well as the end track in “Raising Arizona”, another precedent film (and this one indeed featured young American hooligans!) So we know it can be done. Perhaps good film ideas really are timeless, and can travel well no matter what the international border.
My own preferred film idea: simple newsreel footage showing US Army band playing the Ode to Joy loudly as our troops embark for departure, shaking the dust of Korea forever from their feet. But — no money to be made in that version (except for potential savings to US taxpayers).
Paul H,
Now THAT is a hot idea. But don’t forget “Singing in the Rain” and how clearly it would draw attention to the recent events.
What makes the story racist is that it condemns foreigners for doing the same type of behavior that is common among Koreans: go out with a group of friends to get drunk, sometimes drinking way too much.
I could go to any city around the world where Koreans live or travel, find the bars that are the most frequented by young Koreans, and make up the same story. “Drunken Koreans running amock in Beijing”, “Koreans alcohol problem in LA”…I could probably get some goober to go off on a rant about them. It wouldn’t be any less unethical than that story.
Well, that and the fact that it makes it seem as if all foreigners who go to Hongdae get drunk. They got 3 guys in the video that look like they could have been drunk, that’s it.
Absolutely correct — many foreigners go to Hongdae to get laid, not drunk. Those are often contradictory ambitions for an evening, if my memories of long-ago mis^x^x^xwell-spent youth are not too corrupted…
LOL on the “harmonize with Koreans” Marmot. All together now! Oh, we puke on the street and our girlfriends we beat, and we’re drunk as skunks before 8 p.m., we fall on our faces and pass out in strange places, why can’t you behave more like us?”
This is the stuff!!!!
“many foreigners go to Hongdae to get laid”
So do many Koreans, I’m sure.
The end result of this whole conundrum is going to be an Itaewon renaissance.
Mark,
Probably. My wife thinks that reporters don’t/won’t touch Itaewon because the businesses there have money.
Perhaps Itaewon is where Korean society thinks we expat riffraff belong, and should stay?
railway,
Actually, Hongdae is the prime target because that’s where many highly impressionable underage Koreans go to drink. 386 strikes again.
386 indeed! I think we will see this crowd pulling the strings for quite some time. They bleed pink.
So, what will Korea do when Canadian ESL teachers swarm Hongdae in a massive hoarde.. knowing that the competition for those “Korean Woman/Foreign Man one night stands” has been significantly reduced!
Don’t worry all.. the cycle begins (or ends.. or is somewhere in the middle).. and USFK soldiers will be back when the public realizes that their existence mitigates the number of Canadians causing havoc on the streets.
ihaveseoul,
The funny thing about their assertions that packs of foreigners roam Hongdae is that in reality a team of Clysdales couldn’t drag most foreigners to Hongdae clubs.
I feel like I’m living in South Africa just prior to the National Party’s victory in the 1948 elections and the subsequent codification of separation in the apartheid laws.
Mark,
Amen to that…. I mean, I’ve been living here a LONG time and they still manage to SHOCK me with the level of overt racism
and ignorance. Boy this is one joykilling post. WHere are the chat rooms where Koreans are so I can cyber-yell at em for buying this bullshit?
PS… the last news story I remember about hongdae was brought to me by a coworker. A former employee of a consultancy where I worked at the time, a Canadian woman, was assaulted by a Korean man in Hongdae.
He was blind drunk and blindsided her with full force while she stood waiting for a cab. He broke the bone around her eye and she required 2 surgeries to get fixed up. Somehow didn’t make the news. THey busted the guy and he apologized and paid her money. THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN KOREA—US OUT OF KOREA–we are suckers for punishment in this country..
Relayer77,
Yep…the only think condoned more than violence against women here is violence against foreigners. She had a double-whammy going against her, literally!
A few months ago at Hongdae NB, I got drop-kicked, head bashed against a metal guardrail, thrown out the door like Jazz on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and then beat on the back of the head repeatedly with closed fists once I was down. Had I been sober, this world would probably have a couple fewer Koreans in it and I’d be in Cheonan prison.
My crime? I just let my junk hang outside my fly on a dare from some drunk South African guys I was with.
In other words you were pissed drunk, took your dick out of your zippers in a childish prank, and the bouncers threw you out of the club. Now you think you’re living in Apartheid South Africa because the Koreans are beating up foreigners with no reason.
I don’t buy it.
Sorry.
I don’t buy it, either.
I saw a guy get beat up for giving a local a plate-job….
I’ve been to Hongdae once or twice, and the only people that acted as if they were out to no good were 2 Korean Americans (but that was just them posturing, trying to look and act like ‘gangstas’ to impress the local ladies). The rest of the people, including the GIs, Koreans, Korean Americans, were acting like typical teenagers excited about being able to enter bars because they are underaged. It was quite dull, actually.
This “Hongdae” sounds like a bastion of foreign debauchery. It should make an entertaining reality TV in Korea, call it “Foreigners Gone Wild”.
South Africans, huh? So that’s what the trouser pilots are calling themselves nowadays.
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