“Fantasy, was he allowed to sit in the front of the bus?”

I guess he would have been had he insisted.

He preferred to get off the bus, though. He seems to have been worried whether the driver would change his mind again. I do, however, not believe that there was any such danger as long as the other passengers remained on the bus, as well. The driver was clearly not willing to put up a fight over this…

The BI official stressed this number of undocumented Korean nationals could even be much lower than the actual figure, considering the continuous influx of Koreans in the country. The bureau has earlier estimated some 600,000 of them arrive here every year.

So BI is saying a little less than half are illegal aliens, not 5/6 “breaking the law”, and that number “could even be much lower”.

But that headline… maybe the Philippine media is treating this issue the same way the Korean media treats English teachers and GIs.

How is it the Philippines get the entrepreneurs while others just get whores? Or is that phase two of their cunning plan?

Could be phase two, since Korean entrepreneurs need, er, entertainment as much as, if not more than, anyone….

Could be also that the local offer of, er, for-hire, young and not-so-young, ladies [and I am not talking about housemaids], is more than plentiful — that is, if places like Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur is anything to go by.

JK:

I understand that you feel angered by Tambe’s sweeping generalisation - but I must confess, although I am really trying not to generalise, that I believe that the attitude described is, indeed, prevalent not only in the ROK but in all countries the cultural foundations of which are based on Confucianist principles. Because these principles emphasise the well-being of the group at the expense of the position of outsiders.

In Western countries the opposite principle rules - outsiders are usually at an advantage:

Germans are full of scorn for their own white underclass and would never spare a dime for these people except under compulsion from the tax system - but they are, without hesitation, willing to donate enormous amounts of money for the poor in Africa, South / South East Asia and in Latin America…

Another example:

Recently I took a city bus in my place of residence. A black man got on at the same time. The driver asked him to show his ticket (he is allowed though not obliged to make random checks), and it turned out that the passenger had no ticket. Thus he was requested to pay a fine (appr. $30,-) for boarding the bus with a fraudulent intent, as it is set out in the Public Transport Code. If passengers who have been trying to board a bus without a ticket are unable to pay this fine or to provide proper identification (so that their data can be registered and the fine can be enforced later), the police will be called.

However, before the driver could take any further action, about half a dozen other passengers (who all had tickets and who all were white) got up from their seats, went to the front of the bus and threatened him with violence in case he really tried to enforce the penalty. The driver felt intimidated and did not proceed any further. They would never have done anything the like for a white person…

While I do not actually condone the actions of these people, I nevertheless found this scene infinitely more appealing than the behaviour of the average ROK citizen who would have done just the opposite…

On occasion I myself also take advantage of the fact that my skin is darker than usual here - though never in the context of evading fines.

The ROK is an industrialized nation that pumps out tens of thousands of illegal immigrants (or law-breaking legal ones) to virtually every Western (and many non-Western) nations. They do not have respect for sets of laws or institutions regardless of where they are.

When 5/6 are breaking the law in one country alone, a generalization isn’t a generalization but supported fact.