Myanmar men assaulted at Yangju station

Another video of an assault has been viewed thousands of times on the internet. This time it is the “Yangju station assault”. On July 10th at around 8:40 pm, two Myanmar men assaulted at Yangju station by a middle-aged Korean man in hiking clothes. The man being hit and the man taking the video were together when they encountered the man. Apparently (according to one news site), the two men bumped into the Korean “ajosshi” and didn’t say sorry. (Like who says sorry for bumping into people in Korea?) The ajosshi said something in Korean that the two foreign workers didn’t understand. They asked “뭐야?” or “What?” in 반말 or low language and the ajosshi got angry that they didn’t speak to him in polite Korean. He started hitting the men from Myanmar as seen on the video. A couple of bystanders tried to stop the ajosshi.
After being punched several times, the man wearing a red shirt had blood on his mouth. The ajosshi also hit the man taking the video. Police were called but the man fled on a bus before they arrived.
The police searched the station’s CCTV to investigate and check the identity of the Korean man. Korean netizens have taken to the internet condemning the action of this one ajosshi. One man said that “Koreans treat Americans and Europeans very nicely but they are indifferent to laborers from Southeast Asia”. Another said that this does not reflect the general attitude of Koreans. They are not happy with how the Myanmar men were treated ~ they do not condone what the Korean did.

It must have been traumatic for the foreign worker from Myanmar. He came here to work and earn money and yet he got assaulted for a reason he may not understand. In his interview with SBS, he spoke in his own language as he isn’t fluent in Korean.
Nowadays, there are a lot of violent videos circulating the internet. They serve as a reminder that although Korea is a safe country and people are generally nice, there are still a few hot headed ajosshis roaming the streets of the country.
If you watched the movie “Ode to My Father“, Koreans were once foreign workers too. There was a scene wherein a group of students were taunting a foreign couple. The Korean hero in the movie defended the foreign couple for he knew what it was like to be a foreigner in another country.
This is the video posted on Facebook: