If you haven't heard it yet, go and listen to Seoul Podcast's hour-long interview with Stephanie White, the mother of Michael White, the 14-year-old boy who died last week in a Gyeongsan sauna. Forget everything you've ever heard about the incompetence, laziness, callousness, and stupidity endemic among Korean police and medical workers, because this will throw all that out the window. I would summarize things a little bit and include some excerpts, but I think our computers would explode. Or, you'd put your fist through the monitor.
I don't want to editorialize too much here because it's such a recent and sensitive issue, but this is absolutely ridiculous, and Jesus Fucking Christ, can we get the word spread to as many as possible and reach a Korean audience as well? I know that too many of the expats in Korea with influence and Korean-language skills are too indifferent, too jaded, too lazy, too aloof, or too self-absorbed to do much beyond shake their head and mutter something about being a shame, but how about paying attention, for a change, to what is truly important in our "community."
14 comments:
Thanks for spreading the word. That was one that I thought people should hear and get freakin' ANGRY about. Stayed up late to get it online right after recording.
The story finally made the front page of the Chosun online thanks to foreign blog posts and comments. I just posted about it over at TMH.
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2008/05/22/death-of-mike-white-makes-front-page-of-chosun-online/
YES!!!!!!!
NO!!! The story is basically a polite STFU to Stephanie and the foreign community.
P1: introduction
P2: Stephannie's side
P3: transition sentence saying something to the effect of "After investigating the police report, autopsy report, and statements from sauna employees and EMTs, we found a number of factual discrepancies with Stephannie's claims. This transition sentence is followed by statements from the above mentioned parties. The story does end on a suspicious note with the police stating they are still investigating all possibilities, including murder.
Really? The other translation in the Marmot's comments and what my fiancee said was that the article said that the sauna disagreed--that other people's accounts had discrepancies. That's just balanced reporting. Otherwise it'd just be a screed.
To clarify (and I'm not in the mood to go into another paranoid "Koreans are out to get us" debate)--
That article said there were discrepancies in accounts, not facts.
I know that too many of the expats in Korea with influence and Korean-language skills are too indifferent, too jaded, too lazy, too aloof, or too self-absorbed to do much beyond shake their head and mutter something about being a shame
Actually, Brian, you don't know that.
but how about paying attention, for a change, to what is truly important in our "community."
OK, Brain, could you tell me what is truly important in our "community?" And define "community." Does said "community" include all those migrant workers who got burned to death in Hwaseong when that refrigerator complex exploded? Or the 9,000 illegal migrants who are going to get the boot from Korea this year? Or the Vietnamese and Chinese wives killed by their husbands? I'll assume it doesn't include our Korean neighbors also struggling against tragedy and injustice.
Hey, don't get me wrong --- I don't think I blogged much about them, either. I sure didn't put up a banner on my sidebar asking to donate money to their respective causes. But then again, I'm not calling out other people for not doing enough for the "community."
Yes, I know this is an infuriating situation. Or at least it initially appears as such. But let me suggest that neither you nor I have any idea what actually happened. I've met Mrs. White, and she's a lovely woman who I truly hope the best for. I've also contacted the press people I know (which are not that many) in hopes of drumming up attention to her plight. But if you think the "expats in Korea with influence and Korean-language skills" --- jaded, lazy or self-absorbed they may be --- are going to be shamed into action with the rhetoric of victimization/identity politics, I'm afraid you'll find you're mistaken.
PS: Sorry if I've come of as a patronizing dick.
"Sorry if I've come of as a patronizing dick."
Eh, it happens. I amended the second part to my entry last night, probably influenced too much by that hard-to-sit-through interview and a long day. It's hard to say, though, that there IS a widespread sense of community, regardless of how you define it. But that's for another day, another post, and probably another blogger. But I get frustrated---and I guess I can be guilty of it as anyone else---of armchair punditry with little action and fewer results. What am I suggesting, storm the gates? I dunno, but probably what the world doesn't need any more of is sociology lessons from another English teacher blog.
Thrilling blog. No, really... I mean that.
This comment will be in no way associated with your entry, but I wanted to say all the same how refreshing it is to find someone who isn't so self-absorbed in his reflections about a culture. I've ambled along the innumerable narcissistic cyber-alleys and have found few to be in any way agreeable; just glad to say that I consider yours one of those rare delights...
It's equally delightful, accessible, witty and reflective, adequately unyielding to the weirdeties that exist in Korea (South, if you're a pedant...) and just nice.
I'll be often dropping in to read your quips, perhaps even contribute to future discussions.
Carry on!
Haha, thanks Angela! I do my best and sometimes it works out. My biggest regret is having such poor Korean skills so that most of the Korean news is inaccessible to me unless I steal it from somebody else's translaiton. I'm sorry to say that my English has gotten a lot worse since coming to Korea. If I had had a blog when I was 19 it would have been awesome.
Anyway, thanks again for the visit and for the comment, and I'll have a look around when I get some time. I think you're being too hard on yourself, and surely it can't be that bad. I don't think you've ever spent a significant amount of time writing about some guy named "Crown J."
@zenkimchi:
The Chosun Ilbo story seems balanced because it presents many sides, but it does not present them equally. I originally mistranslated this key transition sentence:
경찰의 수사 내용과 구급대원의 증언, 부검의를 취재한 결과, 스테파니씨의 주장은 사실과 다른 부분이 적지 않다.
As a result of collecting information from the police investigation, the EMT's statements, and the post-mortem exam, there are a number of discrepancies between Stephannie's claims and the facts.
Rather than treating Stephannie's statements as equal to those of the police, pathologist, and EMTs, it calls her statements "claims" and the others "facts." This is not balanced.
Even though your fiance is a native Korean, she is not reading carefully the structure of the article, a classic presentation and refutation of claims. I did not translate the beginning, Stephannie's account, because it is already known. The other accounts specifically refute each claim made by Stephannie.
One part I did not translate was Stephannie's criticism of the EMTs:
"구조요원들의 응급처치 솜씨는 형편없었다"
"The EMTs' emergency treatment was awful."
Stephannie has detailed in every English forum her specific criticisms of the medical care her son received from the EMTs and the hospital. Most likely she included those important details in her interview with the Chosun, yet the story printed only her harshly critical comment without any supporting details.
The story quoted the EMT as saying:
"스테파니씨가 무엇을 보고 우리의 응급처치 실력이 형편없었다고 했는지 모르지만, 우리는 최선을 다해 규정대로 응급처치를 했다"
"I don't know why Stephannie said our emergency treatment skills were awful, but we gave our all and treated following procedures."
Stephannie's unsupported criticism of Korean EMTs plus the foreigners' negative generalizations about Korea in the second section angered many Korean netizens.
I am not the only one who thinks the story was biased. Native Korean speaker bumfromkorea thought so, too.
That article said there were discrepancies in accounts, not facts.
Your fiance needs to reread the story. The transition sentence includes the word 사실, which means "fact."
I don't suppose you read the comments to the Chosun piece at Naver.com, Sonagi? 800 and counting, many of them utterly disgraceful. Of course, it didn't help that the Chosun cherry-picked foreigner comments to link it to the US beef debate, or the Chosun decision to make it a main story, something I guess we should in a way be thankful for, but could be seen as 사대주의 on the part of the Chosun (i.e., if the victim wasn't American, do you think that story would have been place so high?).
I didn't read the comments at Naver; the ones at the Chosun were enough.
I think a foreigner of another nationality would have gotten the same attention if the case had been publicized through blogs or vigils.
My long-time perception is that the Korean media tends very much to underreport cases in which the victim is a foreigner and the accused Korean, regardless of the nationality of the victim. Prior to the establishment of blogs, the only alternative source of information in Korea was Stars and Stripes; hence, crimes or suspicious incidents involving US servicemembers often did get a few centimeters of column space in the Korean papers so that the Korean media could put its own spin on a case already known to English-speaking foreigners. The Itaewon stabbing death of the military doctor, alleged in the Korean press to have insulted the man prior to being stabbed, is an example.
사대주의? I don't read the Chosun's story as sympathetic to a grieving mother, but as a veiled attempt to hush the noisy foreigners who are dissing Korea by blaming earnest EMTs and safety in general.
Post a Comment