Amanda Takes Off... - Latest comments on Take a Picture, Anger a Korean

In response to: Take a Picture, Anger a Korean

pepo [Visitor] — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:39:14 +0000

The picture was well worth the hoohaa, Amanda.

And, I applaud you for having the courage to talk back to a Korean man!

In response to: Take a Picture, Anger a Korean

EFL Geek [Visitor] — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:23:03 +0000

Nice pic.

As I understand it, in Korea you have to ask permission to take a picture of someone - not that that has ever stopped me before. My take on this is that these people were just busybodies who get off on interfering in peoples lives.

In response to: Take a Picture, Anger a Korean

Brian [Visitor] — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:16:07 +0000

I almost always avoid taking pictures of strangers just so I don't get caught up in any drama like this or in any legal trouble.

The weirdest photo drama I've been involved in was at the Chungjangno Street Festival in Gwangju this past fall. They had a few small tents of old photos of downtown Gwangju, and I was taking pictures of these pictures. Then this Korean guy gets a few feet from me with this long-lensed camera and starts taking my picture. I didn't see him until I turned around, and once I did he turned awy. Then I turned back around, looked for a few seconds, took another photo, and when I turned around again he was just taking his camera off me a second time. I gave him a "ya" because we were the only two people in that little tent and it was clear what he was doing. I turned back around, looked at a few other photos, and lined up my camera for another picture, and turned around to find him pointing his camera at me again. When I went up to him he backed away and I chased him, sort of, back to the street.

Weird. And the stuff the Metropolitician wrote was going through my head . . . not b/c I'm obsessed with protecting my likeness, or whatever, or interested in pressing charges . . . just weird how, in cases like this (when I approached the guy he said it was for a university project) and other examples of westerners used for promotional purposes, the laws fly out the window. We all know people who have been put, unknowingly, into advertisements for their hagwon, or who have played the unwitting token foreign endorser in the local festival's advertisements.

In response to: Take a Picture, Anger a Korean

Robbin [Visitor] — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 05:20:50 +0000

Amanda,

It's getting creepy everywhere. Prejudice and general fear aside, I have to watch myself even more than I used to.

I never talk to kids alone because of the not talking to strangers idiom, but now I feel that it's gotten where people are so spooked about the "lack of control" that I have to catch myself with talking to kids even when their parents are around. It should not be such a scary world.

In response to: Take a Picture, Anger a Korean

t-hype [Visitor] — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 05:11:51 +0000

That's the second weird photo related story I've heard this week. This other blogger doesn't speak any Korean and I kid you not, some old lady hit her...

http://keenascrusade.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-i-got-beat-korean-style.html