I can understand why these women feel unsafe but is following someone around in Korea considered a crime? If not it would explain the indifference shown by the police:
Concerned residents in the Haebangchon neighborhood, located next to Itaewon in Seoul, have formed a community awareness group in response to an increased amount of sexual harassment in the area.
People Unite against Street Harassment (PUSH) was established in March this year and held a fundraiser during the 10th anniversary of the HBC Festival last weekend.
Brittany Hayes and Alicia Trawick from Florida in the United States lead the group.
“Over the past year there have been different things happening, but it was kind of being brushed under the rug,” said Trawick. “The police were not doing anything, so we took it upon ourselves to do something.”
PUSH President Hayes believes the police response has left a lot to be desired.
“A lot of people have contacted the police about this issue but nothing has happened,” she said. “A girl wrote on the HBC forum on Facebook that she had been stalked by a guy and when she went to a police officer on the street he ignored her.”
Ashley Pifer, also from the U.S., said she had such an experience.
“I was with my friend in a mart along HBC road when an African man came in,” she said. “He said, ‘Hello, how are you?’ My friend responded and I just ignored him.”
“We walked down the road to CU Mart. I went inside and made a purchase and as we were leaving the same man walks in. He proceeded to rub my arm and say, ‘What’s this? I like.’ I moved away and walked out.
“I left my friend and walked further up the road to the pharmacy. When I came out the same man was standing across the street. I panicked and called my boyfriend and then the man ran away. To me it wasn’t coincidental that we were in three places in a row.”
As she later discovered, the incident was not isolated but part of a pattern.
“I wasn’t even going to report it until I saw a post on the HBC forum,” she said. “A guy said a similar man had followed his girlfriend home. So I decided to make a report because others came forward with similar stories,” said Pifer.
“My Korean boyfriend and I spent two hours being transported to three police stations. The whole time the police were trying to convince us not to make a report. One of the officers spoke to us in English and tried to help but after speaking with his superiors he came back and pretended he could not understand me. I eventually gave up. They didn’t believe me and it was pointless.” [Korea Times]
The average apartment prices in Seoul are actually not as expensive as I was expecting, but they are still pretty high:
Apartment prices in Seoul are expected to surpass 500 million won this month.
According to Kookmin Bank’s housing prices data, the average sale price of apartments in Seoul came to 499-point-nine million won as of the end of last month.
The average sale price of apartments in Seoul marked 489 million won in April 2013 and stayed below 500 million won for the past two years, but it is moving upward recently.
The steady rise in the apartment price is attributed to a surge in prices of jeonse, or deposit-based long-term rentals. [KBS World]
If you feels like Seoul has a lot of elderly people living in it, you would be right:
Senior citizens in Seoul have outnumbered children for the first time, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Thursday.
As of April 30, there were 1,234,181 people 65 or over in the capital, slightly surpassing the number of children under 15 ― 1,232,194.
The aging index, the ratio of elderly people to children, recorded 100.4, exceeding 100 for the first time.
“The higher index means the number of elderly citizens is increasing more than the younger generation, which will be the working-age population needed to support them,” a city official said. [Korea Times]
This is a protest I think most men would want to go check out:
A topless woman appeared in Seoul’s busy downtown area around noon Wednesday with her private parts only covered in tape to protest for women’s right to bare their breasts.
Holding a sign that roughly translates as “Why are men allowed to expose their nipples while women are not?” she later put on a bikini top to cover herself up when a crowd of men had gathered around her.
Police arrived at the scene to stop her and the woman left at around 1:30 p.m. Police said they had no idea why she was holding the protest.
The 27-year-old woman, identified only by her surname Lee, had caused a stir last month after a video clip of her dancing topless at a night club went viral on the Internet. She is known to be an ex-dealer of German luxury cars. [Chosun Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but when asked why she was protesting topless she said it was the only way to get people’s attention.
It looks like smokers in Seoul are going to have less option of where they can smoke:
A three-month grace period ends today for violators of a smoking ban at all restaurants, coffee shops and Internet cafes, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Tuesday.
From today, anyone who violates the ban will be fined 100,000 won ($90), while the owners will have to pay 1.7 million won ($1,500).
When the government implemented the ban in January, it gave a grace period until the end of March, and has since tried to raise public awareness about the smoking ban.
“Smoking in those places has not been strongly controlled to date. We only fined owners who maintained smoking tables for the last three months,” said a ministry official. “However, the ban will be strictly applied from April.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see how strictly this ordinance is enforced.
Shown is the Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park in downtown Seoul on March 20, 2015. The plaza opened on March 21, 2014, to contain a multiuse park, a fashion plaza and an underground mall with the aim to serve as South Korea’s as well as Asia’s fashion hub. (Yonhap)
Seoul (AFP) – Concerns about public safety standards in South Korea have been fuelled by shocking CCTV images of a young couple being swallowed up by a sinkhole that opened at their feet on the sidewalk in Seoul.
The footage, which has gone viral on social networking sites, shows the couple plunging through the paved sidewalk, shortly after alighting from a bus in the South Korean capital, as other passers-by look on in horror.
The incident happened near an apartment construction site last Friday — the end of the three-day Lunar New Year holiday.
Firefighters rescued the young man and woman who fell 10 feet (three meters). Neither of them was seriously injured and both were discharged from hospital after receiving treatment. [AFP]
You can read more and watch the video at the link, but at least these two pedestrians are alright unlike the 16 people killed and 11 injured during the outdoor concert in Pangyo when the grate they were standing on collapsed.
It’s that time of the year again that if you can spend time in Seoul instead of trying to exit the city with everyone else because it will feel like you have the city to yourself:
The mass migration for Seollal, or the Lunar New Year’s Day, has begun.
More than 16 million Koreans are expected to hit the road during the five-day holiday, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
Expressways were clogged and airports and railway stations busy at the start of the traditional pilgrimage for family reunions and holiday-making trips.
The number of travelers is predicted to peak Thursday, Seollal, with 7 million likely to move.
Information on less-congested roads and other traffic situations is available through broadcasts, the ministry’s website (cyber.mltm.go.kr/traffic) and its mobile website (m.mltm.go.kr/traffic).
The government has increased the number of express buses, trains, flights and ferries to reduce traffic congestion during the holiday.
For Seoul citizens planning to return late Friday or Saturday, the city government will extend the operating hours of subways and intra-city buses to 2 a.m. [Korea Times]
Hyundai is thinking big with the construction of what they hope will be a landmark building in Korea:
Hyundai Motor Group began negotiations with the Seoul city government over the construction of a 115-story headquarters at the Samseong-dong plot in Gangnam it purchased from Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) for 10.55 trillion won ($9.6 billion) last September.
According to the city government Sunday, Hyundai Motor has submitted a plan to build the highest building in the country at 571 meters (1,873 feet), 16 meters higher than the Lotte World Tower.
Currently, the country’s highest skyscraper is the North East Asia Trade Tower in Songdo, Incheon, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
That building, which was finished last July, has 68 floors and is 305-meters high. Offices occupy the first 35 floors, and the remaining floors are used as a hotel and for restaurants.
The world’s fifth-largest automaker said it wants to build a landmark dubbed the Global Business Center at the Kepco site in Gangnam when it purchased the land last year. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
