To summarize a Columbian man and his Korean wife were walking back to their car at the Busan Costco when the Korean wife yelled loudly for a car to stop which saves the life of little kid who can in front of it. The grandpa of the little kid gets angry at the Korean wife for yelling at the kid and then eventually tries to assault her. However Columbian husband gets in front of him to stop the assault and the grandpa pushes the Columbian to the ground and begins to punch him. While this is going on he is yelling racist remarks the whole time. The assault is caught on camera and yet the police side with the Korean grandpa who is lying and yelling racist remarks the whole time. The police arrest the Columbian man and say this can all go away if he does not pursue the assault charge on the Korean man. The charges are dropped after the Columbian man agrees to not pursue the case against the grandpa and everyone goes home.
The best thing the Columbian man did was not to try and fight back despite being pushed to the ground and having the Korean man on top of him punching him. In Korea you do not have the right to self defense like people in the United States for example may be use to having. If he would have punched the guy back he would likely be in jail for assault. What he was not smart about was trying to pursue the assault charge against the Korean man. He should have just left after the assault was broken up because the odds of the police siding with a foreigner are very low. This is where the swallowing your pride and walking away is the best thing to do. It lets the Korean man save face while the foreigner doesn’t have to worry about getting arrested.
Rear Adm. James Kilby, commander of U.S. Carrier Strike Group 1, makes remarks after arriving with the group’s flagship supercarrier USS Carl Vinson at South Korea’s southeastern port city of Busan on March 15, 2017. The Carl Vinson is taking part in joint South Korea-U.S. military maneuvers aimed at countering North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats. (Yonhap)
Cherry blossoms are in bloom in Busan, a southwestern port city, on March 3, 2017, signaling that spring is indeed just around the corner. The blossoms are about two to five days early this year in the southern parts of the country. Seoul is expected to see the cherry blossoms some time around April 6. (Yonhap)
Considering that the suspect is an ethnic Korean it will be interesting to see if the Korean media tries to keep a low key approach to this case or not:
An American soldier of Korean ethnicity has been charged with raping a Korean woman at a Busan guesthouse.
Busan Jungbu police have charged the man, 21, with raping the woman, 24.
The soldier, from a U.S. Forces Korea camp in Gyeonggi Province, made the woman’s acquaintance through an online dating app.
On Feb. 18, he met her in person in Busan while on a brief vacation. At about 4:30 a.m., after they had been drinking, the soldier took her to a guesthouse, where he allegedly raped her.
Police said the man had denied the charge.
The police plan to refer the case to U.S. military police, who will deal with it according to the Status of Forces Agreement between Seoul and Washington. [Korea Times]
The Japanese government has responded to the installation of a comfort woman statue in front of their consulate in Busan:
South Korea expressed “strong regret” over steps taken by Japan on Friday, including recalling its ambassador, in protest against a statue recently set up in front of its consulate office to shed light on its wartime atrocities of forcing women into sexual slavery.
“We express our strong regret over the action taken by Japan with regard to the statue,” the foreign ministry said in a comment issued in the name of its spokesman.
“The government wants to make it clear again that both countries should keep advancing their bilateral ties based on trust regardless of any challenging issues,” it added.
Earlier, Japan decided to temporarily call in Yasumasa Nagamine, its ambassador to South Korea, in protest against the statue installed at the end of last year by a civic group in front of its Consulate General building in the southern port city of Busan. He will likely return to Japan next week.
Tokyo also announced a halt to the ongoing negotiation on a currency swap agreement between the two countries — an emergeny channel of and the postponement of a high-level economic cooperation meeting. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but I am still waiting for the installation of a statue in front of the Chinese embassy in protest of all the modern day Korean comfort women in that country that these activist groups don’t care about.
As I have said before, the installation of this statue is needlessly provocative against Japan which has apologized an offered compensation multiple times for its past wartime activities. If these activist groups really cared about sexual slavery then they would be putting up a statue in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul in protest of the modern day sexual slavery of North Korean women in China. However, that would take real courage because China will retaliate unlike Japan that these activists know will just continue to take it:
This photo, taken on Dec. 30, 2016, shows people installing a statue of a girl representing victims of wartime sex slavery by the Japanese military in front of the Japanese Consulate in South Korea’s largest port city of Busan. (Yonhap)
A civic group installed a statue of a girl symbolizing the victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery in front of the Japanese Consulate in South Korea’s largest port city of Busan on Friday after the Dong Ward municipality gave its approval.
The ward municipality agreed earlier in the day to let the civic group install the statue on the sidewalk about 40 meters away from the consulate’s back door.
It marked the second of its kind established in front of Japan’s overseas diplomatic missions after one was installed in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
“We will not stop the civic group from installing the statue in front of the consulate if they wish to do so,” Park Sam-seok, chief of the municipality, said at a press conference. [Yonhap]
Installing this statue outside the Japanese consulate in Busan seems needlessly provocative to me. If these activist groups are so concerned about sexual slavery then they should be putting up statues in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul in protest of the modern day sexual slavery of North Korean women in China:
Members of a civic group confront police on the sidewalk near the Japanese Consulate in South Korea’s largest port city of Busan on Dec. 28, 2016, after attempting to install a statue symbolizing victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery. (Yonhap)
Dozens of members from a civic group without authorization attempted to install a statue of a girl symbolizing the victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery in South Korea’s largest port city of Busan, but the attempt was foiled due to opposition from officials and police.
The group tried to set up the statue on the sidewalk in front of the back door of the Japanese Consulate shortly after a weekly rally around 12:30 p.m. calling for the Japanese government to offer an apology and compensation for its wartime sexual enslavement of Asian women, many of whom were Korean.
As many as 150 activists from the group staged the rally to protest a Seoul-Tokyo landmark deal in December last year in which Tokyo apologized for its colonial-era atrocities and agreed to provide 1 billion yen (US$9.4 million) for the creation of a foundation aimed at supporting the victims, euphemistically called comfort women. [Yonhap]
An American teacher working at an elementary school in Busan and her family have been selected to receive a community service award from the city of Busan for helping to clean up Gwangalli Beach after Typhoon Chaba struck the city:
From left: Sisters Fiona and Stella Rupert and their mother Deanna walk on Gwangalli Beach in Busan which they cleaned on Oct. 5 after typhoon Chaba wrecked it. / Yonhap
An American family who voluntarily cleaned Busan’s Gwangalli Beach that was wrecked by deadly typhoon “Chaba” this month will receive an award for their service to the community.
The city’s Suyeong-gu District Office said on Monday that it would present Deanna Rupert, 38, and her two daughters, Fiona, 11, and Stella, 5, with an “award certificate for foreign residents” to honor what they did.
The three Americans — who live near the beach — and a group of Koreans cleaned up the beach for more than four hours on Oct. 5. They had brought their own equipment.
“Fiona told me the beach was our neighborhood, and that it was our duty to clean it up and protect its environment,” said her mother, according to Yonhap news agency. [Korea Times]
There is a lesson to be learned here, don’t except drinks from strange people you just met:
Police have arrested a man for allegedly drugging a Uzbekistani women and dragging her to a Busan motel to rob her.
Police said that on Sept 13, the man, surnamed Kang, 35, approached the victim at a bus station in Oncheon-dong. He had a vending machine coffee that contained zolpidem, a sedative primarily used for insomnia.
He introduced himself to the woman as a Japanese living in Korea. Kang told police he talked with her for about an hour before giving her the coffee. After the woman fell asleep, he dragged her to a nearby hotel and stole her belongings, including a gold bracelet, police said.
Kang also allegedly stole about 10 million won ($9,060) from 12 other victims using a similar method.
Police arrested Kang at a motel in the area after going through security camera footage. [Korea Times]
