From Reuters:
A new word — ssu-parazzi — has even been coined by adding part of the Korean for garbage for those who specialise in catching people illegally throwing away their rubbish.
The damning evidence is sent to the appropriate state agency, along with the witnesses’ bank details, in return for rewards which start at 50,000 won ($36) and go much higher for more serious infringements.
“In just two weeks, I have earned 8 million won ($5,700) … I feel grateful for the academy and my teacher,” wrote one student on the website of another school, Posang Club, adding that he had paid several hundred dollars for lessons.
Eight million won? Gee, that’s a lot. But you’re still a fucking snitch.
(HT to reader)
{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
This is unreal! I have to buy a video camera…there is all kinds of bad things going on in my neigborhood. I would love to get me some of that cash.
Is it only Korean citizens who can get in on this? I guess I could always use my wives banking info.
Guys have been taking pictures of traffic offenders, for money, for some time. This is just another way that the law operates, no?
If it keeps my neighborhood clean, I’m all for it.
P.S. If I were paid for every illegal street banner than I have personally had to cut down, on my street, in the last eight years, Seoul City or my Gu would owe me more than what this guy got paid, no joke.
wack.
Any reward for narc’ing on illegal English teachers?
Like the rubbish bags are labelled (and now bar coded) could we get the legal teachers to wear some type of label. A tattoo? The mark of the beast perhaps?
Perhaps we could put them in foreigner-only neighborhoods and have them ride foreigner-only public transport.
Just to differentiate the legal ones from the riff raff.
I’m with R. Elgin.
우리나라 우리쓰레기통 must end.
Little Brother Is Watching You!
This is just another indication that Korea, despite all its uri-ism, has no civil society of which to speak. To be fair, whatever it had was wiped out by the upheavals of war and rapid industrialization.
That said, I’m lucky enough to live in a Korean neighborhood that has recovered a sense of community and there’s no garbage to speak of.
To be accurate, Korea never had a “civil society”. It had a traditional society, which provided some of the connections and social goods associated with civil society, but as part and parcel of a social order that had no concept of individual rights such as undergirds modern civil societies. And it still doesn’t – although there are some “sprouts” that the local versions of talking heads try to delude themselves into thinking are the fully-grown plant.
And for those of you wondering why the police state works so effectively in North Korea, here is your answer.
How many wives you got?
I consider a “snitch” to be someone who rats out his or her friends for money, which means these people are not snitches in my book. In fact, I applaud them for reporting the many “f_cking” A-holes who do not think twice about running red lights or throwing garbage in the streets. Also, I hope they get rich off reporting the traffic violations of the many “f_cking” jerks who recklessly ride motorcycles. After they are fined enough times, maybe these “f_cking” A-holes and “f_cking” jerks will finally learn the advantages of being a good citizen.
By the way, Ampontan has written an interesting article entitled, “Korea’s three 21st century invasions of Japan.” One of the invasions he refers to is all the Korean garbage that washes up on Japanese shores.
The “gummiment” could spend a few chon on trash cans, couldn’t it? Naw.
How about a garbage tax for everyone. Then we could have more garbage cans and we wouldn’t have to worry about using the “proper” garbage bags.
Have you folks in Korea started using reusable (canvas or some such material) shopping bags? If not, why not? Has there been a ‘wave’ of people proposing same?
There was a story on this in the Vancouver news the other night – it just confirmed to me that society can still, in this day and age, accept a practice that runs counter to advancement. Makes me think of the police state that’s north of the Han.
I researched a lot of this stuff today and the price breakdown goes like this.
10k for littering a cigarette
30k for store owners that don’t accept the tax revenue card.
100k for traffic violations, running red lights, illegal u-turns…etc.
300k for littering garbage in an unsanctioned dump
300k for illegal DVD’s
1 million for film on imitation bags like LV, Gucci…etc.
I am totally taking my camera out this weekend and hitting the local shi jang!
Gumi_teacher – thanks for the list! If the won ever becomes worth more than toilet paper again, I may be able to retire!
Really, all one has to do is stand in front of any convenience store and photograph the ajossis throwing their cigarette wrappers on the ground. I’ve never seen anyone even attempt to do anything but.
#10 and #13,
Here are the true fines and penalties for traffic violations:
http://www.dla.go.kr/english/03_pds/pds02.jsp
Signal violations and illegal U-turns = 70,000 won for cars, 40,000 won for motorbikes
Never enforcing the laws in Korea = Priceless
My personal favorite “traffic” violation:
Splashing water on the road = 20,000 for cars, 10,000 for motorbikes
hey….snitching works in North Korea, so why not in the south?
but there you get i think like about 20 more grams of rice/day. no cash.
videotaping isn’t necessary either.
Little Japan
Care to explain? Not seeing the connection right away here.
The strict control of garbage tossing is one of the things I like Korea better than the U.S. The world would be a better place with that policy.
Strict control of garbage tossing?
If you mean the very commonplace garbage tossing that people do onto the street every day, resulting in piles of trash next to trees and posts on the sidewalk, I disagree.
If you mean the expensive trashbags that we must use to throw garbage away legitimately, I agree.
Anyway, speaking of trash, I’d like to thank the city for putting one of their three public trashcans directly in front of my apartment’s front door, so that I can hit it up in the morning for free, keeping my place free of refuse. I just hope I don’t get videotaped doing it now.
I will start taking out my rubbish out while wearing a ridiculously short schoolgirl uniform and I will accuse anyone who films me of being a pervert and sue them accordingly.
… taking out my rubbish while…
Hit “post comment” too soon. Damn.
#10,
I thought they had removed the ‘bounty’ on people who run red lights because many of the photographers were more interested in collecting bribes from the drivers than turning in the pictures to the cops.
PS. Assholes who run red lights should be made to wear dark clothes and stand in the middle of a busy intersection during rush hour traffic for a week.
PPS. Yeah, with all the smokers throwing their cigarette butts on the highway, I’m tempted to mount my video camera on the dashboard of my car.
#13
I saw the cops shutting down and carting off all the illegal rip DVD vendors in Chong-ro last night. I was wondering what lit a fire up their collective rears. Maybe it was the reward in some capacity.
I’d like to start a school for f*cking snitches. Except it will be the kind of school where people perform coitus on snitches. I’m of split opinion on this as well. On the one hand, it would be pretty sh*tty of me to film my local store owner not charge me for for a bag, but F taxis and busses.
Hey Sam,
What’s an F taxi? I’m familiar with the A train, but that other escapes me.
Still it’s cheaper than operating thousands of CC camera on every corner of blocks like in the UK. End of the day it helps to clean cities, no? I think Vancouver needs to operate this as well, almost every smoker throw out cigarette butts from their car window.
@24
and what is/are busses?
Speaking Rubbish in Seoul, did anyone read this beauty in the Times a while back?
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2008/11/177_31900.html
Hey, if people are too lazy, or ignorant to act in a civil manner, then we have to enforce appropriate behavior. If it happens to be the police who are paid to enforce the rules, then so be it. If it happens to be the citizens, good for them,even if it is not for altruistic reasons.
Yeah, yeah, big brother aside, throw your garbage in a garbage can and live free
But F*ck taxis and buses. An F taxi is me being lazy and saying F for fu*&.
Someguy, I thought they shut down the bounties for the “car-parazzi”, too. However, I was under the impression there were too many incidents where they were endangering people by manufacturing situations in which to catch drivers in the act.
I thought they had too. I know I shut down one guy myself. He used to position himself to take pictures of care making right hand turns from a small side street into the main thoroughfare. When you made the turn, there was a very small space within which to maneuver in the rightmost lane before you had to change into the center lane, because the right was generally a bus-only lane with just a short transition zone for entering traffic. This knucklehead would position himself so he could get a picture of any turning car that made it appear that the car was out of bounds of the transition area and in the bus-only lane, whether it was or not. I had to make this turn everyday, and everyday this putz would take a picture – notwithstanding that I was always in-bounds. After about a week of this, and a fistful of tickets to show for it, I went to the cops and complained. They laughed. Next time, I made the turn, I brought someone with me who filmed the vigilante taking a picture while I was in-bounds. I took it to the cops. They laughed and shrugged. Next time out I stopped, got out, grabbed the idiot’s camera, smashed it up and left. When the same cops showed up for me, I shrugged and laughed and tore up the tickets in their faces. They left, I never heard from them again and the moron was seen nevermore.
I love stories like that.
#33,
Great story…You’ll have to pay the tickets when you sell your car, though.
It’s the plural of “bus”. I think Americans spell it without the double “s”, but that makes a word that rhymes with “abuses”. For me, that’s an ugly error.
#35: Nope, somehow they never made it onto my record. I know because I had quite a few to pay and got a printout from the Gu office.
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