Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency, in cooperation with HUFS, will publish a guidebook for foreigners on how to act when they fall victim to crime (or perpetrate crimes themselves).
The first edition will focus on domestic and school violence.
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“Immigrant wives are especially vulnerable to domestic violence due to lack of proficiency in Korean.”
Is this another way of saying, “Gee, we’re sorry something bad happened but please, you have to understand our culture”?
I definitely want to read this one!
As Anton said, I bet anything that the major lesson will be “you should just understand Korean culture”!
Also, something about all Koreans having “hard lives”, so you should really forgive any transgressions.
Cant’t wait!
“#13 - Although you may think an unknown Korean jabbing a beer bottle into your arm may be assault, it is not. He just is shy and wants to practice his English on you. Please, be understand.
…
#19 - That red-faced businessman shouting at your Korean wife or girlfriend in the restaurant is not insulting and threatening you both; he is concerned over the possibility you may eat something spicy. pbu.
…
#25 - If police at a station refuse to consider your story of assault, it is not because we think you are a white big-nosed dog. (We know your grotesque nose is not your fault.) Probably, our police members are very busy regulating the complex barbershop industry. pbu”
“1. If you are assaulted, kick the bejeebus out of the assailant and unass the area before the police show up.”
“2. Koreans are never guilty. Foreigners always are. Korean men are especially not-guilty, as they are more equal than all the other pigs.”
“3. File your report in your home country, because foreigners are never innocent (see 2).”
3.5 If you are assaulted and report it to the police. You will be charged for assaulting a Korean, even if you have not touched the assaulter in anyway.
My first thought was actually “Isn’t that a nice and well-intentioned gesture. And they’ll start edition 1 with help for victims of domestic violence - very thoughtful indeed.”
I mean, at least it’s there in black and white, right? So if someone has to go into a police station after some incident, they can point to the relevant sentence and say, ‘Look! Here’s the procedure! You DO have to help me!’
Then I thought of all those newspaper articles a few months ago that confirmed that no law prohibits foreigners from accessing their bank accounts from overseas, and how showing those articles to Korean bank staff did no good at all.
I would hate to say it’s a waste of time. I would hope the booklets might help someone in need. But they won’t change a basic fact of life: foreigners live here at their own greater-than-the-local-level-of-risk.
#1- The whole quote was a goodie:
“Immigrant wives are especially vulnerable to domestic violence due to lack of proficiency in Korean. This is a crime. But they don’t know how to cope with it,” Kim Choong-sil, a Gyeonggi police officer, told The Korea Times.
So, in the KT’s exceptional translation, not being proficient in Korean *is a crime*, and that’s why immigrant wives are being assaulted. And these wives don’t know how to cope with their lack of proficiency. lol