Those of you who, like me, appreciate the way the Korean English media burries factoids may find this in the Korea Times worth a thought:
An anti-corruption body recommended Friday that the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs revise the current law requiring employees working in health- and sanitation-related industries such as clubs selling alcohol, massage facilities and coffee shops to have regular medical checkup to see if they have sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Now wait a second, I thought prostitution was illegal. There was that “crackdown”, that was supposedly so severe that protest broke out, and so severe that I just assumed, incorrectly it seems, that this testing program was done away with.
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Coffee shops? Does this mean that you now have to have a blood test to work at Starbucks?
Seriously, Dram_man. Just stop. This post is not only ridiculous, it is asinine to an extreme.
The news you refer has nothing to do with whether prostituion is illegal or not. It’s about the government amending an equally asinine law so that it makes some sense. Indeed, it appears that they are doing away with the testing that you incorrectly assumed was already gone. (seems like a good thing, no?)
Will they succeed in the effort? God only knows but it would be so much more interesting by far if you would read the news, try to understand it, and blog about things like, oh, don’t know, anything that matters??!! (i.e. implications of the story, mistakes, biases…)
Instead, you seem to get these random thoughts that pop into your head and, shazzam!, before giving your brain a chance to process, jot down the first thing that came to mind.
Think, man! Because there was a severe crackdown on a protest against the crackdown on prostitution, they “did away” with the testing program for STDs???
My lord….
It’s not asinine to monitor the health of prostitutes. Doing away with health testing is bad.
From a public-health perspective, it’s smart to monitor the health of prostitutes because it allows the government to detect and respond to outbreaks of disease which could pose a threat to the public — whose health is guaranteed by the single-payer health care system. That prostitution itself is illegal is irrelevant. The fact is that establishments selling alcohol, massage parlors, and coffee shops tend to include those establishments which also offer sexual services, which makes it smart policy to target those places. Why we don’t simply legalize the activity is beyond me, though — then we could simply register prostitutes no matter what their cover organization, and monitor their health accordingly (and collect tax).
Damn… I was wondering why the drinks costed so much at starbucks !
costed?!?!?!… huh …?
Anyway, the crux of Dram’s argument is definitely unsensible: Speeding is illegal, and the police are ticketing speeders, so what the hell are we doing with the stop signs, speed limit notices, and speed bumps?
I am perplexed by some of the comments here.
If Korea was to define prostitution as a societal ill, I find this policy incompatible with such. Wouldn’t the threat of disease by a deterrent to such activities? To to mention the message of, “Yeah its bad, but we are going to make it as risk free as possible.”
As for the traffic safety law analogy, now that is nonsensical to me. The purpose of such is to inform people of the specific law in such areas, or in some cases simply to assure a better flow of traffic.
If you want a better analogy, I guess one could look at needle exchange programs, and other drug-use enabling laws.
Or if you want to exaggerate the case to make a straw man Brendon, why make cars that go over 95mph, since that is currently the maximum allowable speed (in Montana I think)?
Or perhaps a more specific straw man to my analogy would be “Why not make cars as dangerous for the driver to drive as possible?”
I’m not a regular commenter here, but I implore Robert to give this guy some time off. It’s no better than watching Shelton train wreck whenever he gets a keyboard in front of him…
Maybe it’s time to let him strike out on his own and start his own blog into which he can ejaculate his ill-formed thoughts…
Dram man sorry to tell you this but most of your posts are just gibberish.
If your so intent on writing about S.Korean prostitution then find an article that is remotely related to prostitution.
At night,
the 안마
look like Christmas churches
festooned in streamers of sparkling lights
twinkling gaily. The red red cross smiles down:
Wash the feet of the sinner,
we are all god’s children.
Nah, Dram is doing okay. Sure, his spelling and grammar may be deficient (and you say he is a copy-editor by trade? Must refuse to use those skills when writing gratis), but he occasionally does some good.
If this post had not been written, Linkd would not have written the above poem, which I love! Linkd: more of same please. Can you do a whole week where all of your comments are in doggerel?
brendon, i think it is asinine to have a law on the books that all coffeeshop workers have to be checked. so, i thought that amending the law to make it more sensible was a good thing.
personally, I believe that we might as well just legalize prostitution to reflect reality. irrespective, however, testing should be done.
“Daddy, why is Dram_man so upset?”
“No one knows, son, no one knows. He just keeps writing angry, poorly written pieces about Korea and Koreans. It doesn’t matter if it’s actually bad – why, it could be something as simple as a promotional photo in a newspaper, that’s all – but he’ll find the hate in it. Some folks ’round here wonder how it all started, but only he knows what’s upsetting him so much.”
buries
Obviously NOT. It’s not only the law-breaking prostitutes and johns who are at risk but law-abiding wives and girlfriends, too. It is not in Korea’s public interest to ‘punish’ prostitutes, johns, or their regular partners by not testing for STDs.
Hey, how much does a copy editing job such as the one dram_man has pay in Korea? I really need to broaden my options…
No Korean-Korean would hand over a document to another ethnic Korean for proofreading, no matter where he grew up and went to school
Drammie’s a white migooksaram. In Korea, that makes him more qualified for his job than you are. (You aren’t even a migooksaram. only white people can be that).
Brings to mind one of my favorite maxims: Every inefficiency is someone’s meal ticket.
Linkd, what are you talking about? I had a job here in NYC doing exactly that for Woori. Taking konglish equity reports written by korean koreans and fixing them up for Americans who want to invest in Korea. And I know for a fact that there are plenty ethnic Koreans working in Korea doing the same thing.
I do Woori Bank’s and Woori FG’s annual reports. Not in NYC. Here. I know what I’m talking about.
Ok but why would you say something so utterly false and dumb as the crap you spewed below? I obviously gave you a counter example.
Ok I get it. You don’t like Koreans much. That’s OK. People are by and large hateful towards each other. Now let ‘s see if we can build some consensus!
Actually I’m by and large pretty nice to people offline. Even Koreans. Lord knows they have enough odds stacked against them without me reminding them what a pickle they’ve made for themselves.
So uhh, any chance you can hook me up later on when I quite this horrible job I have now?
Just asking.
JW – it’s pretty clear that you have your heart set on coming to Korea, and I haven’t been trying to dissuade you so much as make sure you aren’t too starry-eyed. Lots of us (all races) live here and like it for reasons that are varied and hard to explain, but Korea is no cakewalk. One of the really bizarre things about Korea is that it is so developed and wealthy and seemingly on the cusp of breaking through as a full-fledged top-tier country – there’s just a few things that need to be fixed and Boom, we’re there. And so foreigners tend to think that since it’s so obvious what needs to be done, they can jump in and participate and together with the Koreans make this country all it can be.
But that’s where things have been in stasis for decades. ‘Korea’ in the broadest sense of the word, is very stubborn. She will cut her nose off to spite her face, every single time.
If you can translate and you have some knowledge of financial, scientific or business terminology, yes, I can get you some work, but not enough to be your one-stop solution, not nearly. Plus, and this is a true thing I say here, I have never met a happy translator.
Awesome, thank you. I will be sure to keep your advice in mind. I remember reading somewhere on Chosun.com that an experienced interpretor can make up to 1억원 per annum, which totally blew me away. Yeah the person was korean korean, but still. That’s like 130 to 150 K here in the States.
Interpreters with six-figure incomes almost certainly work for the government. Most translators and interpreters are lucky to break the 3 million mark. My understanding from talking to ethnic Koreans who did this sort of work part-time or full-time is that Koreans just won’t pay for quality, and there are enough bilinguals willing to work for pennies.
CIA language officers start out making $48,000 and top off at $88,000. This may seem like a lot until one factors in the Greater DC area’s very high cost of living, especially housing. The salary range for a CIA language officer is comparable to the teacher salary scales for local school districts around DC. If one factors in the opportunities to earn extra pay doing after-school and summer programs, teachers actually make more.
Goodness, I applied for that CIA job too, but got my ass rejected after saying some really stupid shit during the interview. I also can’t help but think that my korean ethnicity lowered my chances somewhat, although I did see ethnic Koreans working there. Not that I’m too grumpy about it though. My guess is that I would feel something of a conflict of interest working there. (No, I’m not pro North Korea in any way)
Why do you think you’d feel a conflict of interest?
As far as I know, they do open source analysis on both N Korea and South.
Cost, my bad.
Oh and of course it is possible that US North korea policy can be significantly against S Korea policy on N korea
“my korean ethnicity lowered my chances somewhat”
Inasmuch as there is official policy against South Koreans, no.
Inasmuch as South Koreans have a reputation as being difficult to work with, probably.
“my korean ethnicity lowered my chances somewhat”
Inasmuch as there is official policy against South Koreans, no.
Inasmuch as South Koreans have a reputation as being difficult to work with, probably.
You might want to check your math, unless you like disappointing yourself. At the present exchange rate it’s far..very far…from $130k to $150k. And today’s exchange rate will be 1500 – 1600 later this year.
And a fascinating, thought-provoking topic Dram_man. Keep ‘em comin’.
What kind of stupid shit did you say? Do tell us. I PROMISE I won’t use them as fodder to make fun of you.
Hey Seouldout, Not in terms of the exchange rate no. Goodness I hope I’m not as dumb as you imply. As far as I know, tax rates are much lower in korea and basic needs sans housing is also more affordable compared to the U.S.
Sonagi, haha, sorry you couldn’t get it out of me for a million dollars. Ok maybe for million dollars, but I would have to go by a different handle on this board.
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