In fact, the first reaction to BOK was not mine. It was stamped in my memories by one of my UK friends. Over 1 month ago, he said to me, "They are crazy! Why does Korean police let them free to do such idiot behaviours everywhere in Korea?" And I still think they are crazy.
2) Why is it wrong to post pictures of passed out people with foreigners POSING in front of them?
BOK photos remind me of Abu Ghraib photos. The combination of 'passed out people' and 'posers with them' would not be called as an idiot behaviour or a moral hazard by itself. It could be accidental or could have a reasonable motive as the owner of BOK is shouting "Improvement of Korean drinking culture!". The conspicuous characteristics that made me feel awful are the posers' expressions in photos : happy smile, thumb up(or victory), ridiculing atmosphere. Why are Abu Ghraib photos awful? Naturally a man standing by the other person in trouble is expected to feel down. He is expected to feel depressed, sympathy or angry. But the soldiers in photos show happy smile and thumb up. It's bizarre! Passed out people on streets needed helps and at least they were exposed to danger. They were not very happy as much as posers enjoyed them.
3) Would you still have a problem with BOK if it was made by a Korean, with only Koreans in it? To what extent is this a foreigner/Korean issue?
Basically I think BOK was impossible if posers regarded passed out people as human beings or if posers regarded themselves as cultured people at least. And it seems to me that this social phenomenon is about visitors / residents issue rather than foreigner/Korean issue. As you know, Abu Ghraib soldiers were also visitors. Chinese people are saying "Visit here and do the same things on our streets. We will kill you all as soon as you take poses." now on their Internet(link). Most of passed out people in BOK photos were Koreans and all photos were taken in Korea. These two facts make me so sad as a Korean. If you are US citizen, you can't agree but the BOK is original US style. I and most of my friends(Korean, Chinese, Japanese, UK, Luxembourg, Denmark) think so.
4) It seems to me after talking with some Koreans that the biggest problem with BOK is the people posing. If there were no people posing - just passed out people - would you feel as strongly?
If there were just passed out people in BOK photos without posers, I could express just one worry about violation of portrait rights. At that time when a passed out people was taken as a picture, he was in a stigmatic moment of his life. It is why BOK had not to expose the poor people's faces online. Now Korean and Chinese newspapers in which BOK problem is described with photos, passed out people's faces are blurred. It's not because they are Asian people. It is just because they are regarded as victims. Compare these photos in a same article : ①Posers(link01, link02) ②Passed out people
5) Is what BOK presents racist? Or is it distasteful?
Their behaviours present the loss of humanity. The judging of racist or distasteful manner could be up to the viewer's race or personal taste. I think every viewer can find the loss of humanity in BOK photos if the viewer is conscious of humanity.
6) Is it a matter of freedom of speech?
That's the most interesting assertion made by the owner of BOK. Once I told him, "'freedom of speech' is a good word. But BOK is a simple place to speech freely about Mission & Execution in collusion in the real world. There were real actions and your posts just showed what happened in the real world. You only have been focusing on how you could influence the Korean society without taking any responsibility following your operations. Peter Drucker said that power must always be balanced by responsibility, otherwise it becomes tyranny." BOK seems to try to have a power to improve(?) Korean drinking culture under the cloak of 'freedom of speech' without considering of generating victims. The passed out people taken as disgraceful pictures in their lives and the other Korean people got shocked by the photos are all victims.
7) Is it fair to compare BOK to Abu Ghraib? At Abu Gharib, the subjects of the photos were prisons; they were being tortured; and they were in a war zone. The subjects of BOK are people that passed out on the street on their own accord.
I'm a simple engineer but not a sociologist. Anyway in my viewpoint, BOK could be worse than Abu Ghraib. The passed out people were not prisoners of war. There was no reason to torture them, of course. They were just fully drunken on their own accord. They were not enemies! Why ridicule them? Why touch them without consents? Why show the joy of victory with smile or cheers? I can't even guess what tempted them to do so, except for evil minds. Where are similar photos of BOK, that include powerless residents, visitors ridiculing them and thumbing up? Abu Ghraib! Very special and creative(?) activity which is usually unimaginable for normal people.
These are FACTs :
1> The most praised reaction of Chinese people was, "Visit here and do the same things on our streets. We will kill you all as soon as you take poses."
2> There was no Korean who criticized me(or my work) when I was blaming 'Low-quality English teachers' related to Black Out Korea's terrible behaviors. Back then, I received a mention from a lady who opposed to my actions. She said, "Why do you react to such lowbrow people? Ignore them!"
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