Recent events

This happened. The particularly violent crimes that our own people have committed against Koreans has been very much in the news here recently. USFK reinstated the curfew, and I have received information on the legal rights of foreigners in Korea (something that I arguably should have gotten when I arrived here).

I am ashamed of what my countrymen are doing, of course. Foreigners here are always on display, and we represent the United States to all of the locals. Sometimes I poke fun at this by ordering a different dish from my husband at a restaurant or walking in my neighborhood in a tank top with a big pregnant belly, but I am aware that truly misbehaving stains the United States's already tarnished reputation. When someone else misbehaves, I hate them for it. Normally this involves glaring at the guy who calls the flight attendant five times before the plane leaves or the people in line at the supermarket who believe that yelling in English will make the counter attendant magically understand. When something like these violent crimes happen, we all walk with our eyes down for awhile. There have been anti-American protests.  I understand their anger.

There has recently been noise about disproportionate sentencing when the defendant is a foreigner. I am sure that this happens. I am also sure that it happens in the United States, and probably most countries in the world. Foreigners who commit crimes are just more egregious. We are guests in this country, and we have violated their hospitality. Furthermore, I think a ten year sentence for the violent rape of a minor is appropriate. I think that it's ridiculous that the South Korean legal system considers intoxication a mitigating circumstance, but that's really the only thing in the article that made me angry.

On a side note, the victim of the crime had her door unlocked.  You see things like this over here because of an insistence that there's no crime in Korea.  This, along with gender politics and a fervent, untempered patriotism lends an aura of the 1950's to this place.  Apparently, many Koreans have become easy targets of bank fraud because they will willingly give their personal information to someone who calls and says they are from the bank.  I am not sure where this idea comes from, just like I am not sure why people think that America was crime free in the 1950's, but it causes more harm than good.

Last year around this time there were a bunch of protests following the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.  Many Koreans were angry that the government didn't retaliate.  As far as I am aware, that incident is now a memory.  I hope my fellow Americans can behave, and these incidents will become memory, too.