I went out to Boryeong over the weekend with a couple of friends to make arrangements for the Boryeong Mud Festival trip in July.
Along the beach the city council had posted entries in a photo contest from last year's mud festival. There were probably three dozen photos in total, and all of them were quite good. Most focused on foreigners enjoying themselves in the mud.
One of the pictures, though, was a bit surprising.
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| The actual photo isn't blurred |
Justin brought up the issue of privacy, which is always heavily guarded in Korean society. If this were a picture of a Korean girl it would NEVER get posted. This is true. Koreans tend to think of foreigners as a funny sideshow, without rights or feelings of our own.
But then again, Korean girls don't flash strangers.
It's not surprising that girls do this at mudfest. Some girls get drunk and like to flash people. Big deal. If you want to take a picture of some poor drunk girl's breasts and keep it for your own personal records, that's fine by me (and apparently her).
I don't know if the photographer had the girl's permission to share the photo. But to post it along the beachfront in a photo contest is in extremely poor taste.
The issue you raise reminds me of several photos that appeared in the British press during the Gulf War, of a boy aged 12 or 13 lying naked on a stretcher. There is no way any British, European or American boy would have been so exposed to public gaze.
ReplyDeleteBoroyeong... too many waegs! It was much better before it became international and the mud didn't have to be piped in! But hey, I'm a snob and 55!
"If this were a picture of a Korean girl it would NEVER get posted. This is true. Koreans tend to think of foreigners as a funny sideshow, without rights or feelings of our own. But then again, Korean girls don't flash strangers."
ReplyDeleteCompletely true, and once again highlighting two big problems for foreigners in Korea. One is that Korean people view us as - basically - non-human or at least as degenerate clowns... and the other is that altogether too many of us help further this stereotype by acting like complete tools.