I’ve noticed that I’m regularly running into pony-tailed white males, who sound American(Canadian?), collecting money from Korean passerbys at major subway stations or streets in Seoul.
If they are collecting money for a good cause, no problem there. But, well let’s just say that there seems to be more to it than meets the eye.
I wonder how long it will be before a TV news producer or newspaper reporter notices them and they make the news with headlines such as “Foreigners stealing money from Koreans”.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Stranger still is that Koreans are more willing to hand their money over to pony-tailed white males than to legless countrymen dragging themselves along the boiling hot sidewalks or otherwise impaired people on the subways, etc. Ah no… I forgot… These people are just faking their impairments according to local folklore.
What stations in particular have you seen them at, Mins? Anyhow, why not just stop one day and ask them?
For years I’ve been running into Japanese university kids who say they are collecting money for their travels, for example wanting to sell me a pair of socks for 20,000 won. There’s something weird about it, and once I asked them why I should pay for their leisure vacation when they weren’t contributing to mine, but… that wasn’t understood. Who are those guys?
#2.
Yoido and Gwanghwamun. Yeah maybe I should stop one day and ask them, but on the other hand, why should I get myself into a situation where the only way out is to pay them off?
Those Japanese students sound a lot like the Mongolian student who is regularly spotted in the area between Gwanghwamun and Seoul Station and asks Korean passerbys 10,000 Won for a traditional Mongolian hand made something. Of course unlike the Japanese students, he plans to spend the money on his studies in Korea and expand his “love and cultural understanding of Korea.”
I have to give that Mongolian guy credit, he sure knows how to push the Korean button.
#1,
I’ve read in the papers a few years ago that some of them, a minority, are drug addicts. They are made to beg by gangsters after becoming hooked on drugs.
Drug laws are strong in East Asia, probably because the French and the Brits used opium to paralyze and conquer South China and Indochina.
Drug users should be punished mercilessly in East Asia.
#1 legless countrymen dragging themselves along the boiling hot sidewalks…
Hey you go to respect the legless guys singing NoraeBang (even on the back of a Bongo truck) as they make their way down the street… At least they EARN their money.
2. “For years I’ve been running into Japanese university kids who say they are collecting money for their travels…”
Right, I remember them too… Really twisted looking people, for sure… They spooked the Hell out of me… I am going to ask my Japanese friends about them. Evil… I think they’re evil.
*Drug users should be punished mercilessly in East Asia.*
More bad news for Korean pharmacists and those of us who depend on them.
This post and comment section is one of the screwiest I’ve seen on the hole in quite some time.
I mean, white ponytailed-drug addicts forced into begging on the streets by their asian dealers?
Maybe I’ve had one to many bottles of soju, but that is one of the stupidest things I’ve heard in ages.
No, the rumor was that the disabled Korean beggars are addicts. We have no clue what ze ponytailers are up to….
A few weeks back a beautiful young Korean woman came to my door and asked if there were any Russian people living in my apartment. I said no, and then she said thanks and left. Hmm? Then about five minutes later I saw the same woman in a group of about eight women down in the parking lot taking a rest and chatting. It seemed like they were going from door to door in the apartment complex. They were all dressed up in 1950′s style dresses. Wonder what that was about?
Later on as I was thinking about her I was about to rub one out, but then I thought about dogbert’s old Putin avatar and I lost my woody.
We get a couple of days a month of Nepalis panhandling for peace in my neck of the woods.
Oh yeah, twice I’ve been approached by young Japanese women collecting for North Korea!
#10, That all conflates rather nicely with Putin’s recent Judy Garland phase.
My best encounters, both at kosok terminal, one a young Japanese male and the other a young east European female, were with fund raisers asking for money for orphans in various developing countries. Each had a laminated A4 page with pictures of dirty, smiling children, as well as official-looking laminated name badges on their chests. Each also gave me pamphlet showing artists’ conceptions of their organization’s ongoing vision and fundraising drive to build a Bridge of Peace from Asia to Alaska. Moonies, I figure.
#13 Linkd
Had the same thing the other night and all I have been able to remember is the “build a bridge of peace” bit — thanks for filling in the blackout.
This was a pretty smelly Japanese boy and finally I said I’d give him all the money in my pocket as I sorted two cheon wons outta the wad I had on me. He seemed genuinely surprised to be given money and had a look on extreme relief like now maybe he could go home or not be beaten by his masters.
Those foobars and their A4 laminates scare me and they never seem to hear my telepathic warning either (“don’t fucking bother me, freak!”).
My guess is that they are Unification Church or possibly a Japanese new religion. The UC uses the solicitation (“for Cambodian refugees” and so on) around train stations in Japan, but they rarely admit to their true affiliation unless pressed. I have run into these groups in Korea as well. They are an international lot with more than a few arranged marriages. I have met several Russian UC members married to Japanese. And Japanese moonie missionaries in the US. By the way, let me recommend an interesting book: — “In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family” by Hong Nansook (1998) — Moon’s daughter-in-law’s exposé on the internal hypocrisy and bizarre dealings of the True Family.
Imagine how much money a pony-tailed white man wielding laminated A4 pages of third-world children dragging himself along the pavement could make. I’d certainly give him money.
and the number one reason you dont give money to people begging because most are full of crap!
I see these guys in the early evening at City Hall station. I don’t like the looks of them and so steer clear. They don’t seem to bother whiteys, just young Koreans.
I don’t like the looks of them.
I don’t think they are Canadians because they are not wearing dorky-looking big backpacks.
Dear blog editors.
I can’t comment on certain threads….like the one about the hostages possibly being released. Can you fix this please?
As for the hostages, let me be the FIRST one on this blog to have a completely positive thing to say about their upcoming release:
Good!! Praise God!!!!
I don’t know about these guys…I don’t live there, and haven’t seen them.
The most interesting panhandler I’ve ever seen was a caucasian Buddhist monk (with red garb…Tibetan Buddhist?) who stood for years on one particular street corner in downtown Vancouver, with a wooden bowl in hand. Just stood there stoically, and never said a word. Then just like that, he was gone, never to reappear. My best, most optimistic guess is that he was raising plane fare to fly to…where? India? Nepal? Bhutan? China!?…and live out the rest of his life in a monastery.
The pony tails do not sound like Moon’s organization but the “fundraising drive to build a Bridge of Peace from Asia to Alaska” is very likely a Moon operation. Though he wasn’t the first, Moon came up with that bridge/tunnel plan to make his followers see him as a visionary and give the press something to laugh about as Moon and his family traveled around the world promoting his last stand, the culmination of his life’s planning, the Universal Peace Federation. The UPF was created when the UN would not follow his proposal – presented by the Philippines – to add a superior theocratic body to the UN structure. Moon has said for decades that he intends to change the UN and he is working to do just that, while the press laughs.
You ought to be praising Don instead if you wish to get the attribution correct. (Don = 돈)
I was watching a news segment recently about the people whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The segment was particularly about 1 guy who’s been going around helping people restore their houses so that they can live in them again. He’s the guy footing in the man-power, hammering away at walls, bringing in the planks and nails, etc. volunteering his time and money for free. During the clip, one lady attributes the fortune of being able to return to her home to God… while standing right next to the person who rebuilt her home. The interviewer had to nudge the lady to expand her praise to include the guy who rebuilt her home.
Of course, consistent Christians would be praising God for Katrina too. And in the case of the missionary hostages, perhaps you ought to praise God for the executions that took place. I’m pretty sure the missionaries feel exactly that way – or will, but only once they return to Korea, if they ever do. If you see a problem with this logic, then congratz.
About the subject at hand, I’ve read somewhere that there is such a thing as caucasians who are homeless in Seoul. I’m not sure if they really exist, but, erm, how interesting if they do.
#21 -
Then Job rose up, and rent his garments, and having shaven his head fell down upon the ground and worshipped, And said: Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord. (Job 1:20–21)
But why let a few little ‘facts’ get in the way of another chance to heap condescending derision on believers?
I didn’t say that this consistency is excluded in Christianity. My point ws that such a norm isn’t always practiced. Good try though.
#15,
http://www.geocities.com/craigmaxim/s-2a.html
15 — “In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family” by Hong Nansook (1998) — Moon’s daughter-in-law’s exposé on the internal hypocrisy and bizarre dealings of the True Family. –
Nansook is one of the great heroines of our time, though few know this. She at least slowed the Moon juggernaut which is growing in influence beyond what anyone would have dreamed 30 years ago. The press is conditioned to just laugh at him and doesn’t cover it though. Moon’s organization has changed a lot in the last 5 years, a lot.
Moon now openly brags about being involved in the “six way talks” and he is. Background on some of that here:
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert356.shtml
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=9868
You can find some excerpts from Nansook’s book here:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/unif/unif148.html
this video interview with Nansook is cut short:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdvQGD5Lnsc
but here is how it closes:
Mike Wallace: [Nansook] has just completed a book, “In the Shadow of the Moon’s”. Why are you telling this story?
Nansook Hong: Because I feel that I was duped.
MW: Duped?
NH: Duped. I feel I was conned. And have a certain naïve, I think, idealism that I wanted to work for God and do think a lot of people have that and a lot of organizations like Moon’s, do take full advantage of those people and I was one of them.
MW: Nansook still believes in God but she has a new way of looking at Rev. Moon.
NH: I did come to the conclusion that Rev. Moon just cannot be the Messiah.
MW: What you’re saying is that he’s a phony.
NH: A con man.
MW: The Rev. Sun Myung Moon is a con man?
NH: That’s the conclusion I came with, living with their family for 15 years.
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