Brawl of old woman, teenage girl in subway car causes stir
By Kwon Mee-yoo (Article from Korea Times)
A carriage on subway line No. 2 turned into a fight arena when a young teenage girl talked down to an older woman who savagely assaulted the student in response.
The scene was captured by another passenger and uploaded to various websites and YouTube, causing a huge stir among netizens, Monday.
The video clip shows the old lady reprimanding the student for sitting cross-legged and the young girl talking back to her. Losing her temper, the old woman grabbed the girl’s hair, pushed her around and threw her on the seat in the car, while other passengers watched the scuffle.
At the end of the clip, the teen girl shouted into her cell phone, “I hate Korea, dad!” and swore at the old woman. Then she noticed the person recording the scene and said: “Upload it onto YouTube.”
Eyewitnesses explained other details not included in the video. They said the student sat with her legs crossed, wearing shoes smeared with mud and it had stained the old lady’s clothes.
She asked the girl to remove her dirty shoes from the seat and the student apologized twice. The old woman continued to scold her with abusive words and the teen girl then refuted and began talking back to the old lady, when the recording of the clip started.
A netizen said the old woman habitually provokes quarrels with other subway passengers and demands younger people to give up their seats for her.
Reaction from the general public was divided into three types — some blamed the rude schoolgirl for using crude language to the older lady, while the others condemned the old woman who attacked the young student and began quarreling with her.
The third group blamed the onlookers for doing nothing. “I think the people around them just watching are also part of the problem.
They should have pulled them apart,” a netizen nicknamed Mirunamu said.
I always have been sorry about South Korean Society after 1960. When Park Jung Hee(the third Republic) took the power by coup d'etat, the demand for the economic growth as South Korea was one of the most poor country in the world, and his need for authority on 대한민국 made Korea to focus on economic growth without morality. Just as what China is doing today.
ReplyDeleteThe result of that phenomenom is unbalanced harmony between HIGH TECHONOLOGY and lack of courtesy among people.
And it seems that a little girl is likely to be "GYOPO(Korean Residents in USA or CANADA)" as she was saying "I hate Korea".
Ignorance of older generation that want to receive "respect or previlege" for being old aged and disregard of young "rich" Korean people from North American society can be seen through this video. Also, indifference of people who do not want be involved in situation of the others.
If the girl is a gyopo then I feel especially sorry for her. It is difficult enough for a young Korean person in this society -- it must be far worse for someone not used to all the social rules.
ReplyDeleteI am often thankful that I did not grow up in Korea. I am too much of an individualist. Foreigners have it easier because we are not expected to conform to the social rules to the same degree as the local Koreans have to.
You observation about Korea's dramatic economic growth versus it's social growth is something I thought about as well. It is as if the cultural attitudes have not had time to catch up with the technological and economic growth.
I believe that Western culture has gone too far and do not respect their elders enough. In Korea it is the other extreme -- elders demand respect.
Haha. I was once slapped by an ajjuma. I had my elbow resting on an open bus window. It wasn't sticking out far, but an ajumma sitting beside me pulled my arm, slapped it, and slammed the window shut.
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDeleteYes they can be quite "persuasive."