"Ajussis Ruin Everything"

Oh, get ready for a rant.

After my arrest for being verbally assaulted by a drunken ajussi, and after exchanging similar stories of drunk older men with anger issues ruining other people's fun, me and the friends made this running punchline: "Ajussis ruin everything."

As much as it irritated me at the time, I just chalked up my experience in the police station, and the fact that the police were even listening to this soused asshole's story, as merely another sign of 1) how society bends over backward to apologize and make room for the behavior of older drunk men, and 2) how refusing to punish them actually emboldens them and harms society.

People usually talk about "jeong" and understanding people's situations in the same breath, which usually results in drunk men's actions being excused "because he was drunk" or "he had a tough life" or some other such excuse.

A friend of mine described a drunk ajussi on the #1 line (which my readers know that I, as a rule, avoid like the plague because of the high number of drunken male idiots who take it) who pulled the emergency cable lever on the subway, bringing the entire train to a screeching halt. When the engineer and police came to the train, his answer for why he pulled it: "궁금해서." He was "just curious."

That's actually pretty funny, if you're used to life here. "궁금해서." And I'd bet you anything that he was taken into the station, scolded, and let go with a warning. No harm done, right? Well, that poor old guy's got a hard life and hey – he was drunk, anyway. Not his fault.

[source]

I feel the same way about the walking waste of flesh who torched a national treasure because of some gripes about his hard life or whatever debts or what-have-you; can you believe he had tried to set fire to another national treasure just last year? They let him off with a suspended sentence so he could go off and torch Namdaemun!

No harm done, right? He apologized, after all:

"국민에게 미안하고 가족들에게 미안하다" ("I apologize to both my family and the Korean people.")

So the judge should let him off easy, huh?

Don't even get me started on the cases of teachers caught molesting/raping students over the years who are given administrative leave because firing him would "hurt his family." Ahhh, I get it. Feel sorry for him because he has a family, but keep him in the system so he can be a public example of society saying that even if you get caught raping your middle school students in a noraebang (that was back in 1995-96, I believe), nothing will happen to you.

Don't even get me started on how women are vilified in the workplace if they dare report sexual harrassment and get someone fired ("She ruined his life!")

Or the case back in 2004 or 2005 or so of the two middle school girls who were serially raped for more than a year by dozens of boys after one of the initial boys secretly taped them having sex, blackmailed her into having sex with his friends, and then started charging other boys for the privilege. The result? When the girls finally reported it, they were accused of being "prostitutes" by the local police and the girls received curses and death threats by many of the boys' parents who said they had "ruined their sons' lives."

Yeah – not that the parents were at all embarrassed about having raised immoral little rapists – after all, boys will be boys?

No harm done, right?

I just got an email this WEEK from a friend I meant to email back, but kinda put off because I didn't know quite how to respond (perhaps I even shut it out a bit since I didn't want to deal over the vacation?) – she got assaulted by some ajussi (hey, nothing new, since I had several female friends assaulted by random ajussis last year!) and was arrested just like me!

Or, when I saw a man slapping the living shit out of his girlfriend within ear and eyeshot of a police station (!), when I went in to call the cop out to look at them, he begudgingly peeked out the door and said, "It's OK. They know each other."

In a nutshell, here's what pisses me off about this, since I see a pattern here and not just some random crazy guy: there's a huge sense of male entitlement that starts from when mamas rub their sons' gochus while peeing, continues unabated with the implicit knowledge that you can feel up, push, or even hit women with minimal social consequences, and that public drunkenness and rudeness – which are crimes in many other countries – is par for the course here.

I'm a foreigner, so I'm like an ajussi antenna; a night, I literally try to avoid certain spaces entirely – the #1 line, the Jongno area, or anywhere where large numbers of working-class men gather for drinks, for example – in order to not attract the ire of some drunk asshole who has a chip on his shoulder about foreigners.

If one is another kind of social magnate for drunk ajussis – say, like an attractive women click-clacking past a group of them, or someone else whom ajussis might tend to find and interest in – I'm sure that person treads equally carefully in such spaces and areas.

I'm just sick and tired of the deep-seated sense of older male entitlement to take out one's own bullshit on others. It's so common, that I think this particularly Korean kind of gendered social malaise goes unquestioned, in the same way that the fish doesn't notice the water around it.

It reminds me of why America refused/s to think about what it is about a particular kind of social malaise that caused mostly middle-to-upper class white males from the suburbs to commit so many mass shootings in the 90's – the possibility to raise the question of "What's gone awry in suburbia?" is a legitimate one, but that question might raise too many uncomfortable followup questions.

And I think this is triply true for Korean society: why do it 봐줘 the ajussi so much? What are the costs of so much entitlement as a man here? Why are these angry ajussis staggering around, starting fights, lighting subways on fire, or national monuments?

And perhaps is Korean society crippled by the "jeong?" I mean, damn. Nobody's really punished here – people are always telling each other to "consider his situation" and "let him off, just this once" or believe that exceptions should be made because we "feel sorry to him."

This isn't the sort of thing that can be talked about academically, with evidence and whatnot, but is a pattern that to me, is clearly there.

I guess, as am American, I draw the line, even when I have "jeong" for someone. People are responsible for their actions, drunk or not. If you can't be, then one shouldn't drink. And it's only in cases where someone gets run over by the idiot drunk, or one of them burns down National Treasure No. 1 that many realized that "봐줘"ing and overlooking things because of "jeong" just makes things worse, not better.

Our little in-joke goes on – "Ajussis ruin everything."

I wouldn't be surprised if, upon being asked, "Why on earth did you want to burn down our country's most sacred and valued cultural treasure?!" the guy answered:

"추워서."

In this society, that would almost make a sick sort of sense. What they need to do is lock that fucker under the jail until he dies of natural causes.

Namdaemun! WTF?!

Sad. Lock that walking piece of human trash up until he leaves prison horizontal.

Comments

[dogbert]

"the #1 line (which my readers know that I, as a rule, avoid like the plague because of the high number of drunken male idiots who take it)"

So I'm not the only one who's noticed that odd prevalence vis-a-vis the other subway lines.

[G]

My first reaction when I found out it was an ahjusshi was, "Well, at least Korean people might finally begin to realize that drunk ahjusshis are not harmless; but how sad is it that it takes the destruction of an inanimate object, rather than the rape/assault/murder of someone, for Korean people to (maybe) realize it.

[extreme webmaster]

I see a pattern emerge here... See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil... When you write about these things, it makes my blood boil. I just want to beat up these pieces of shit (drunken retards) or shoot them (rapists). Not only them, but those who just overlook these things (especially cops, like you mentioned) should be shipped off to the northern part of Korean peninsula to learn to value and respect the life that they enjoy.

[robbb]

Somehow, the yangban culture (which, like communism, doesn't bother me in theory) got all mixed up -- it's supposed to be a two way street, but nobody seems to mention the other side of male privilege, that the older gentleman ought to be an example, a caretaker, and a modest model, for the younger people who give him the respect and privilege of seniority. Somewhere along the line, some (some, mind) of these ajussi seemed to decide they deserved that kind of respect without doing a damn thing to earn it, and now nobody (from the inside, at least) is brave enough to call them out, even though everybody (except ajussi himself) dislikes, resents, and sometimes even fears them and their jackass entitlement.

I live in jongno, and traversing certain streets has taught me how to become invisible -- hunch shoulders, look at the ground, walk fast (but not too fast) - no sudden or large movements.

if they talk to me, I answer in french.

it'll change.

http://www.gordsellar.com/2007/12/20/to-the-ajeoshi-who-wanted-to-fight-with-me-near-the-exit-at-yongsan-station-when-i-was-walking-to-emart-to-buy-sour-cream-and-tinned-tomatoes-or-how-it-feels-sometimes-living-here/

eventually.
http://roboseyo.blogspot.com

[jandkshiday]

Namdaemun is nothing. Remember a drunk ajusshi named Chun Do Hwan who burned down an entire city, then a week later he appeared with Ronald Regan. Even after Korea acknowleged what happened he never recieved a minute of jail time.

[Bulgasari]

Except that Chun did spend time in jail in 1996-7. It's also not a very good comparison.

To add to the stories above, a friend of mine was in Itaewon three years ago and saw one of the girls on the hill being beaten outside on the street. As he approached to intervene, the cops arrived and the man fled up the hill. When the cops did nothing to catch him, my friend began to chase after him (just to get the cops moving - he'd broken his ankle years earlier and couldn't run fast) and so as one cop chased him, he accompanied her to the station, where you can imagine how she was treated. When they finally caught the guy, he had fallen down some stairs and was bloody and bruised. Do I even have to tell you what cops said to her?

"Look what you did to him!"

As for the ajeosshi's punishment, my co-worker wondered if he might get away with it due to 'mental' reasons, but then surmised that that wouldn't be such a bad thing: "At least then we could kick the shit out of him."

[mroseneo]

http://cynews.cyworld.com/Service/news/ShellView.asp?LinkID=4&ArticleID=2008021214052890120

Check out this link. You can see that the rage of the Korean people is being concentrated on not the ajussi, but these Japanese girls instead. If you can read Korea, take a look at some of the replies. Someone said they want to stab these bitches. Some Japanese tourists took a picture in front of Namdaemun. While the girls do have some faults, I am disgusted by the blatant nationalism going on.

[Rosalind]

Those girls have a sense of humor at least. So, while I agree with much of what Michael says about ajussis, this guy at least, unintentionally raised some awareness about the importance of preserving architectural gems. So many beautiful buildings have disappeared - and not by fire - without Koreans batting an eye. Anyways, yeah, ajussis are the bane of Korean society. I love to see one get pummeled by an ajumma.

[The Metropolitician]

mroseneo - Actually, I don't see that in the comments at all. One difference is that they're using a real name system there, so each person's name is printed, and the authorities have their citizen's numbers.

If you read the comments, you get a much more watered-down level of anti-Japanese sentiment, which you'd expect; but it's not actually that bad, compared to what I've seen in other places.

And there's a lot of disagreement there. You've got commenters telling people to get over themselves and their "victim's mentality," I saw a comment mentioning that Koreans were taking similar pictures at the 9/11 site, there are comments critical of the motives of the photographer who took the picture in the first place – it's a hodge-podge of opinions from what I read, and not an explosion of the kind of craziness I've seen in other places.

Of course, there are a lot of inane, anti-Japanese comments – but there's a lot more going on there than a monolithic, one-sided explosion of blatant nationalism than I think you're suggesting.

Just my read of it, that's all.

I think the real name system cuts down on the stupidity you see in other places. Still, I must admit that Korean netizens are much nastier than other places. But you know, many Koreans are aware of this and irritated by it, too. Just looking at the recent video I did (SeoulGlow #9) featured on YouTube, which had more comments from people telling others to stop putting up "악풀" (nasty comments) than there were nasty comments themsleves. I think there's a pretty sizeable number of Koreans who are as sick of the vocal minority of nasty netizens as many of us foreign types are.

[mroseneo]

Yea I agree with you Michael. I know that there are some people who were defending them, but they are maybe 1 out of every 20-30. I also posted on there:

한국의 국수주의가 다 나오네.... 한국사람이 불을 내고 한국 소방관들이 쓸모없어서 소화를 못했고... 그게 창피한거죠. 하나투어로 캄보디아의 킬링 필드에 가서 신나는 사진을 찍는 아줌마들은 얼마나 창피해요. 그냥 일본 사람이라서 국수주의나 차별을 부리지마세요. 먼저 자기국민의 행동을 생각하시길.

I will probably get an attack on my cyworld site. Haha

But there is some crazy stuff there: "일본인들 죽겨여 제발" and other things.

Well the picture was actually taken down for some reason.

My point is that, like you said, the drunk ajussi will be forgotten about, but people will find other venues for venting their anger such as this one.

[Otto Silver]

Doesn't Confusion culture have this thing about you should not be held responsible for what you do when you are drunk? It's like an official outlet for the stresses of live. My interaction with older Korean who will know more about this is very limited, s I'm still not sure :(

[hbg774]

"Someone said they want to stab these bitches."

Makes me wonder what they say about this pic. I know those korean officials have NO faults, while those jap bitches do have some, anyway, though.

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/652103c04a.jpg

[gordsellar]

Huh, that's weird. Did my comment here get deleted?

Here's a tidier version of Robosaeyo's link to my site:

http://tinyurl.com/35qq3s

Personally, I know I differed in opinion with you, but I've come around to recognize that yeah, there are nutters out there. I think Confucian pirivileging of older males (ie. "ajeoshis") is part of the problem, but also sometimes wonder if it's just the degree to which Koreans agree to leave mental illness as a social taboo, something not to be brought up.

Anyone who torches national treasures -- plural -- has something broken upstairs, but so do the kinds of nutters who get drunk and assault people like those you've described in various posts (and I've described in the one robosaeyo linked to).

It's sad, though, because I've met lots of older Korean guys I could get along with. Even if they do come from that mindset of, "I'm the older guy, and we're going to do things my way," -- in other words even when you know going in that there will be a "dongseng" role and a "hyeong" role -- some of these older guys are very thoughtful, gentle, funny, and generous people. In other words, sane and nice to be around, and far from having them make onerous demands for respect, you find respecting them comes naturally, and you get a sense of reciprocal respect from them too. My soon-to-be father in law offered me such a warm reception that I could barely believe it, when I first met him.

(I know, lucky me.)

It's too bad so many guys give the group a bad name. A bit reminiscent of how a few naughty foreigners give us a bad name in the eyes of many Koreans.

By the way, some Korean women have suggested to me that a lot of blue-collar ajeoshis act the way they do because their wives are hard on them at home, and they feel disrespected, so they act out in any situation they can. It's not exactly offered as a "hard life" excuse, either... more psychologizing this behaviour. But it doesn't explain the execrable behaviour of a few rich bastards like the fellow who was so much in the news last year. I think older male privilege, when combined with economic collapse, can be as toxic as older male privilege combined with stratospheric economic power.