The Dark Side of Seoul Podcast
The Dark Side of Seoul Podcast
More Weird News
Never a dull moment, especially if you’re paying attention. We go through some of the odder, weirder, surprisinger news stories in recent months.
This is my stop (May 2023)
Video (86) 아시아나 여객기 '문 열린 채 비행'…아찔했던 그 순간 #shorts - YouTube
You hit my baby! (2018 to 2022; reported Feb. 2023)
This is not my stop (2019, reported Feb. 2023)
Be our guest (2017)
'The Little Mermaid' tanks in China and South Korea amid racist backlash from some viewers
Pride parade to take to Euljiro streets after Seoul Plaza refusal
- 64 citizens waited outside police stations on rotation for 89 hours, calling it a "rainbow relay."
- However, according to the stenographic records of the committee's meeting on May 3, the committee approved the Christian event, citing the "rights of others not to want to look at them" meaning SQCF participants, and the "negative impacts the queer event could have on children's sexual education." [source]
- Seoul Metropolitan Council members and public servants who attended the meeting agreed with the decision unanimously
- Funny that Deoksugung, across from Seoul Plaza, is filled with hate-filled right wing posters--That’s allowed
- The area from Cheonggyecheon to Deoksugung has regular right wing rallies and tents
- Seoul barred Pride from its usual venue – now some students want to do the same on campus
- “We received a large number of complaints voicing opposition by mail and the e-people service,” explained a Sungkonghoe University official, adding that “the school’s position is that since there is opposition, we should go through a procedure of winning support.”
- “If the festival goes ahead on campus, we will face negative attitudes and pressure from the public. It could also have a negative impact on next year’s [government] fin
From murderers to money launderers, thieves to thugs – police officers from the...
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Credits
Produced by Joe McPherson and Shawn Morrissey
Music by Soraksan
Top tier Patrons
Angel Earl
Joel Bonomini
Devon Hiphner
Gabi Palomino
Steve Marsh
Eva Sikora
Ron Chang
Mackenzie Moore
Minseok Lee
Hunter Winter
Cecilia Löfgren Dumas
Josephine Rydberg
Devin Buchanan
Ashley Wright
George Irion
And welcome to the dark side of soul podcast.
Speaker 2:This is Joe. This is.
Speaker 1:Sean. All right, today we're going to have some weird news. We've done a weird news episodes before. I was trying to go for some some articles that are a little more recent. Sean's got some articles that are fairly recent. I'm sure you've heard some of these yourself.
Speaker 2:You may have or may not. Some people may not be following Korean news.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we just thought we haven't done a weird news in a long while and it tend to be one of our well received shows, episodes, yeah So they're interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of the some, some of the ones we have today are. some of them are a bit more offbeat. Some of them are unfortunate more than we are offbeat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i'll say up hand, up front, that, yeah, my articles I chose. I think I'm in a little place of frustration when I chose these articles, so forgive me on this one, please. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And ones that I chose. A couple of them are a bit, are weird, offbeat, a little bit strange, but there are.
Speaker 1:There's at least one that's really unfortunate, so but yeah, well, let's go back and forth because we have them in really okay because, it might, because I think, if we do it in order because I didn't mind after years, and I think we do it in order that might be, that might flow. I'll see. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Just just to go back and this balance it out.
Speaker 1:Well, no, i think. I think I'm looking at the flow right now. I think it'll work better if you do it first. We're talking about how we're going to do the show while we're doing the show. This is to the way it's just to order the notes. This is all right. Yeah, yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'll go first and the I chose. I put these in no particular order about when they occurred or anything like that, just as they came to me. So the first one is very recent. This just happened a couple of weeks ago, as of recording, and so this happened in May, and this happened during a flight on ASEAN Airlines between Jeju, jeju city and Daegu. So just before landing, at around 1245, quarter to one in the afternoon on this flight, one of the doors opened on the left hand side of the plane. One of the emergency doors opened. This wasn't an accident, it wasn't a malfunction.
Speaker 2:People were shitting themselves when this happened. Yeah, mostly because a passenger opened the door. This was huge news. Everyone was freaking out. There was a man in his 30s who was sitting next to the emergency exit in the aisle I guess it's what they call it, the Merseille bulkhead area And he was sitting there. He stood up. He opened the door while landing, no problem, just opened the door. So people freaked out The cabin crew, the flight crew. They jumped up, they rushed to pull the man back, couldn't close the door, of course, because it was all the way open. It was now open, yeah.
Speaker 1:They were too dangerous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they'd have to lean out of the plane to try to get it. They left it open. I do believe there was a kind of a guard that they were able to pull across the door And so, anyway, the plane landed, was still landing, some passengers, especially near the door, passed out. There were a couple hundred meters above the tarmac, so pretty much in full descent. The wheels were probably already down And some passengers kind of passed out. At the time They saw the rush of air. They took the breath away out of the people who were right next to the door. Fortunately everyone was seated and they were buckled in, so no serious injuries occurred, other than just the people who passed out, which of course is not that serious. And then the plane landed. So of course, when it landed they had to have the emergency response.
Speaker 2:The man was arrested And he claimed that he initially claimed that he accidentally opened the door. He pressed the wrong lever or button or something and he forced, he caused the door to open. Of course that's nonsense, because he later said that he felt very overwhelmed while sitting on the plane And he needed, he needed to leave the plane. He felt like he needed to just get off the plane quickly. So he stood up and he opened the door. So anyway it all happened without incident.
Speaker 2:So ASEANA Airlines said the doors generally went in flight shouldn't open easily. Because of air pressure It was very, very difficult to open doors. But on descends, of course the air pressure drops and then doors are easy to open. And I guess once the door got open, the wind just took it and then just forced it open. And so they also made a statement saying that emergency doors are designed to be opened easily for emergencies. It's the whole point. They can be if they land on water or something. There's no particular lever or lock or anything to help open the doors. They just open easily and makes sense. And after this incident there was a survey done of 21,000 respondents in Korea asking their opinion about this Should emergency doors be able to open easily? And 45% said yes, they should, they agree. And despite this this is an isolated incident. Emergency doors should be able to be opened easily. 36% said no, that's fairly close. That's pretty close. I think there's just people kind of being scared And a similar kind of a.
Speaker 2:I don't know like a scared response. a fright response to this was ASEANA Airlines stopped selling exit-row seats. I'm sure they'll start selling them again soon. Kind of a ridiculous response to it, but that's what happened.
Speaker 1:Well, this is an interesting response to it as well is now there's being calls for changing the female flight attendants uniforms because their short skirts don't really make them practical for emergency situations.
Speaker 2:It's interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think that's because they should be allowed to put on trousers.
Speaker 2:Aren't they allowed? I've seen, i don't, aseana, i don't know, but I've seen airlines where, oh yeah, i mean, we're talking about ASEANA, We're talking about Korean Airlines. I don't even know if I've flown ASEANA. I've flown Korean Air. I don't know. I probably have flown ASEANA, i don't recall.
Speaker 1:You know what? Because I'm on the airport line subway line, so I see flight attendants and pilots a lot, and I think I've noticed a couple with wearing trousers, but most of the time it's very uncomfortable short skirts, i think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of them because I used to work at I used to work for Jeju Air at Gimbal Airport. And those flight attendants I'm pretty sure they have like kind of a creamy white uniform. I'm pretty sure they can, or sometimes do, wear trousers.
Speaker 1:And also the shoes. I mean, they should be wearing sneakers, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i agree with that, The idea that they have to wear high heels walking around a plane. I know they're not walking massive distances, but I mean, yeah, it should be comfortable shoes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're no longer in awesome powers Madmen, era of flying Right right.
Speaker 2:So I can understand. maybe in the airport, when they're walking and they look, they're looking very professional, maybe have that protocol, but once they get on the flight they should be allowed to change their. It's like when you fly a tie, a tire, the flight attendants change their uniforms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually I'm okay. So 2013,. The Human Rights Commission of Korea recommended that Louisiana allow its female employees to wear pants.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, they should. That's 10 years ago. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And we know Korea's reputation of heating what the National Rights Commission, human Rights Commission, says, so they love it.
Speaker 2:They love it. They're like oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, okay Well all right What did we think about, we'll just put that in our wallets, whatever.
Speaker 2:We'll get back to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so the man, he he was arrested and he now faces trial. So that that's some unfortunate, weird thing that happened just to just a couple of weeks ago. Really really strange, yeah. So there you go. That's our first entry for offbeat news. This, the second one, initially happened This was reported and reported in 2023, just in February this year but happened in 2018. So a passing car hit a pedestrian, a woman walking along that through a street, just hit her lightly, very minor injuries around her wrist. She got hit.
Speaker 1:Hmm, that's happened to me. I was hit once, the car backing up The woman didn't injure me, but I did. I did slap the car and say, hey, i'm here, walking here, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right. So so this woman got hit slightly.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, no, I did that back twice. Oh, i'm sorry I was interrupting you, but no, no, last year I got hit by a truck, fucking hell. Really. On the way to a tour. Yeah, it hurt my arm. This was a arm of sore for a week, yeah, but I was on my way to a tour So I had no time to stop and make a complaint. So I was like I don't know, oh, i forgot.
Speaker 2:I got hit by a truck, a Bongo truck, he told me that, yeah, oh, so so this woman got hit and she was pregnant And due to the Oh, i was pregnant.
Speaker 1:Now You weren't pregnant, you already had your baby at the time So.
Speaker 2:So, due to being pregnant, the driver was, you know, sympathetic and kind of extra sorry Yeah, Baby on board, Yeah. And so then they they, the victim, the pedestrian got a rightful insurance claim Because you know, she got, she got hit, She's pregnant, So she got a payout. Sometime later, the same woman got hit again and again got had a light injury, And again the driver was very sorry because the woman was pregnant I assume it's a different driver, A different driver And once again the same victim got her rightful insurance claim. And then this happened again Another light injury. And again it turned out that by 2022, this woman got hit and had very minor injuries by cars 103 times. Wow, And she was pregnant the entire time from 2018 to 2022. She was pregnant. I guess she's an elephant.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, what is she?
Speaker 2:an whale, so wow, yeah, her gestation period is very long. So turns out she was full of shit. She was bullshitting the whole time. She was causing fraud. Accident fraud Happened in several cities, from Janzhu to Kuangju to Busan, and she was often targeting women drivers to garner extra sympathy. It's like, oh you hit me, i'm pregnant. Are you a mother? Have you ever been pregnant? You know, to garner extra sympathy And would often try to get the drivers to settle out of court so it wouldn't go to the police. In the end, over this roughly two three year period, two four year period, she collected more than 27 million won, that's over 20, 21,000 US dollars. Yeah, settling out of court or through insurance claims.
Speaker 1:No, okay, hold on. Okay, you keep talking.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do some math here, okay, And so yeah, And then she finally got caught by the police who were investigating one of the accidents.
Speaker 1:Wow, she was not. she averaged around 262,001 per incident. Hmm, not bad. Well, it's all right. Nah, not really. She could have asked for more. Well, free money, i know. But I had a similar incident a few weeks ago. Where I was, this guy had parked I'm trying to get to this area, this guy had parked really narrowly. I'm trying to and I thought, ok, i can get through. It's a dirt road, so it's a little there. There are riv divots in my heart. My car hit a divot and it tapped his mirror, hmm, and he made a big deal of it and I just like screwing this. Like he was asking two hundred for it and I'm like here here's one hundred. I don't have time for this, hmm, and you know it was like fuck you money. I gave him two hundred for tapping his mirror.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was trying to he was trying to milk the situation. It was a young kid, young man.
Speaker 1:And and I was like, OK, well, yeah, if you're going to be. No, it was really crappy little car And and I was like, ok, i'm going to get out of here. And I was like, ok, if you're going to be doing this, i'm not, i'm just, i got. I got other things I got to do, hmm, you know right. So, hundred, fuck you, i'm gone. Yeah, yeah, kid, see you. You need the money more than I do, so whatever.
Speaker 2:Right, right, so yeah. So that's the other entry in today's offbeat news This woman in her 30s pretending to be pregnant, duping people out of money and insurance companies out of money. So and she got caught and it was reported just earlier this year.
Speaker 1:So I mean the insurance company, of course, i guess one hand is not watching the other. There's no way that they were checking to make sure she actually was pregnant. That's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess you just assume, like I don't know. insurance companies, I would assume, well, I guess, assuming wrong, they should have a protocol that would require a person. If you're not visually even if you're not, you know, visually pregnant, even obviously pregnant, then maybe there should be some protocol to check.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm wondering that might be one reason why Korean car insurance is so high. Is maybe they're not really investigating? At least claims us thoroughly. They're just blindly just going OK, we'll pay you.
Speaker 2:I recently had a long, very interesting conversation with someone who works with, i wouldn't say the insurance company, i guess. I guess it doesn't matter, but he works for a very large insurance company in Korea and his job is investigating fraud And he said and he pointed out, he said insurance fraud is a massive problem in Korea. It's a huge issue. Doctors are often in on it And he said it's one of the biggest issues facing Korea today. It's one of the an issue that isn't really talked about very much, but a massive issue for these companies, doctors being in on it, people asking you know for way too much, pretending they're hurt when they're really not. And he said it's a massive, massive issue. And he said that he told me some cases that he had where people were doing similar things pretending to be hurt, going to have these major accidents or minor accidents, being in the hospital, have a doctor in on it. Yeah, i'm being deal, huge deal. That's a whole episode we could eventually do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean we can talk about. when you and I were in the car and I had my accident and our insurance part, our insurance rep recommended that we go each go to a doctor as a preemptive measure, just in case the person that we were in accident with was going to start doing insurance fraud.
Speaker 2:Right And in the end it didn't.
Speaker 1:Didn't do it, she just dropped it Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, well, and no one was hurt, this car just scraped each other. Yeah, so scared the crap out of me. Sorry, it wasn't your fault, it was definitely her fault And we know from the, from the, from the, the camera footage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the black box, it was totally Anyway, yeah. But anyway. I mean when they started finding her more at fault, then she dropped everything. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and she was. she was being really bitchy about right when you you could add the car in, like you're saying she's okay, apologizing. She's like what are you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, that's, that's how you have to do, because if you start being agreeable, then you lose your. You lose the fight. You have to. When you get an exit, you have to be belligerent and treat someone like oh my God, you are crazy, why did you do such a thing? You?
Speaker 2:have to do that Similar. a similar thing happened when my wife was pregnant and she got hit by a car. Well, she was driving and she got hit by a car. The car she was, she was rear-ended by another car. So she was, she was driving and the light turned yellow and red and then she stopped and then the car behind her hit her.
Speaker 1:Oh, i'm always careful about that, cause I've been rear-ended in the past and I'm always checking, see, yeah.
Speaker 2:So so the guy got out of the car and my wife didn't get out initially. She's she was full on pregnant too. She was like eight months pregnant, yeah, so, so, showing very, you know, very big by that point. And the guy came and went to the window and like, knocked on the window. My wife rolled it down and she's like, oh, are you okay? And he was calling her a bitch and everything like that. And she's like, oh shit, and then she got out of the car and he could see that she was pregnant and he went as she bet. And then he said, oh, for fuck's sake, this kind of thing. He got in his car and he took off. What? Yeah, he left.
Speaker 2:Now it happened in front of the hospital My wife was getting, was getting, was gone for a check, like this check, having the check from the baby and and herself. And of course, in front of hospital there's CCTVs everywhere. Yeah, hit and run. But, but especially in around hospitals there are a lot of CCTVs and many, many witnesses and a doctor witnessed it. And so the doctor, the doctor came over, not her doctor, another doctor, yeah, yeah, he came over and he said Are you okay? And she said, yes, i'm fine, i'm just kind of a bit shaken. This guy hit me and now he's just swore at me and then he's gone, and so so the doctor said, okay, is this your hospital? And she said, yes, he's like, even if you're okay, go see your doctor now, exactly. And she said What's your, what's your doctor's name? And she told him she's like I know who that is. I'm going to call him right now and tell him to clear his schedule. I just witnessed you get hit, So you should get a full check, you and your baby. Yeah. So so they said she said Okay, and then she said the doctor got in the car with it. It was like, and, and I think he parked the car. So he said to get in it all, parked the car, he went, he parked it, helped her up to to the, to the wars, and then everything was clear to. Then her doctor gave her a full checkup, just to be safe, and she was fine. She didn't hit her stomach or anything like that. It was all fine. So it turned out to be okay. But then, but then the doctor called the police for my wife Okay, this is doctor such. And so he said I'll take care of all that.
Speaker 2:So the police then came after the checkup and interviewed her, interviewed the doctor, got the CCTV, cctv, cctv footage, was able to get the license plate number from our car's camera and then caught the guy And he got charged for hit and run, but asked us what we wanted to do. My wife said to me look, i'm really pregnant, i don't want to deal with going to court, i want to settle out of court. And I was like that's fine, whatever's more comfortable for you, let's do it. I said, but let's fucking milk the guy. Yes, so we so.
Speaker 2:So we went to the police station and everything. And then they caught him, brought him in and he was really apologetic And the cops said how much do you want? We're like 10 million. And the guy was like oof, and we're like it's either that or go to court. And then the cops said to him I said if you go to court, you're going to have to pay more than that because you, you, you hit the car. Yeah, you're at fault, you're completely at fault. You're going to get nabbed for that. You verbally threatened a person. You're going to get nabbed for that. And there are witnesses to it, and one of the witnesses is a doctor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an authority in Korean society. Yes, right.
Speaker 2:And and you took off. You're going to get nabbed for that. You're probably going to fall on four charges. So you'll get you'll have to pay more than 10 million. You may even do time with suspended sentence probably, but you may get like a month in jail or something month in prison. So he said okay And he arranged it. He got the money to us in like a week. Wow, so yeah, and that was it. That was our experience.
Speaker 1:That was a satisfying into that story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so yeah, and the guy didn't get away with being a jerk piece of shit. So there you go Insurance fraud. So this, this, this woman pretending to be pregnant, who who got 27 million total out of minor injuries, forcing herself to get hit by cars, mining in a minor, in a minor?
Speaker 1:way, we'll return to the podcast after this message.
Speaker 2:In our first comic we explored ghastly Korean folk tales while walking the streets of Seoul. This time we are ambling the Korean highlands with terror tales set in those storied landscapes. Welcome to the dark side of Seoul. Weird tales from Korean lore Mountains of the Macabre. Now another one. Moving on.
Speaker 2:This happened in 2019, but wasn't really reported until earlier this year. It happened in Ulsan, down just kind of north of Busan. There was a man in his 20s who was drunk and hailed the cab, as you should do when you're drunk. Don't drive, take, hop in the cab And if you have money, it's better to take a cab than take a bus or a train when you're drunk. Got the cab, told it, told the driver where he needed to go. The driver was an older man in his late 60s and told the driver where he needed to go. Driver started going to the destination. The passenger changed his mind and then the driver started going to the new destination. The passenger changed his mind again And he did this a few times. He kept changing his mind about his destination. The driver kept you know was getting frustrated, but kept saying all right And then started going in the new direction And then finally, the passenger asked the driver to stop along a highway. He's like, let me out here. And the driver thought, okay, fine, i'll just let him out, he knows where he's going.
Speaker 2:Now, there was no sidewalk along the highway. It was pretty dark, the dark highway. You know, some of these highways have very few street lights, street lamps and stuff Right, and sections can be really dark. And the driver said that there were a few large trucks parked along the shoulder of the road, shoulder of the highway, which often happens, especially in the street. Is there sleeping, sleeping, or they just, yeah, or they do park there because they may be doing work nearby, and then something, oh yeah, they park their truck there and then a car drops them off to go to work And then they park there at night And then the truck takes them home, kind of thing. So anyway. So the driver thought, okay, maybe this is where the guy owns one of these trucks or something, and then let him out.
Speaker 2:Then the driver, he got paid and then he pulled away. The passenger now a pedestrian was walking along the dark highway And about 30 minutes after he got out of the cab he got hit by a car and he was killed, poor man. And the driver was, you know. They investigated, they found that he was in a cab, found the taxi driver. The driver was charged, taken to court and convicted of manslaughter through occupational negligence. He was initially acquitted by a lower court but then the higher court threw out the acquittal and sentenced the driver to a year in prison for occupational negligence leading to death.
Speaker 1:Okay, i can see the parallel. I know in America if you're a bartender and you realize someone's inebriated and they might be driving, and if they drive and they kill someone, the bartender is partially responsible for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i've heard about that as well. I think that happens in Canada as well. I think a lot of countries that happens, yeah. Occupational negligence, yeah, yeah. It just goes to show how, really, how responsible we all really need to be in society for each other. It shows the importance of it. So this driver, yeah, a year in prison. The prosecution argued that the driver should not have allowed the passenger, especially a drunk one, to get off along a dark highway with no safe place to walk, i see that.
Speaker 2:I see that. So the driver's argument was he couldn't reject a passenger's demands.
Speaker 1:Well, we know it's bullshit, because they reject the passenger's demands all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, That's right. And then I guess maybe good drivers don't and that was his argument. We don't know, but in the end, anyway, the court disagreed And the driver also said he didn't know the passenger was drunk. But anyway, in the end, the court just disagreed And yeah, And then that was an unfortunate story that happened in 2019 related to taxi drivers And taxi drivers. I know we can do a whole episode just about issues with taxi drivers. We did do in our fire episode. We did talk about drivers self-immulating.
Speaker 2:Oh emulating yeah Yeah, sending themself on fire and whatnot as protest. But there are a lot of issues with taxis and drivers and things like that in Korea, and this is an unfortunate one that happened in 2019. There you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not sure about that punishment Punishment, And my initial opinion is a little severe.
Speaker 2:But yeah, Yeah. Yeah. He might just be just a normal nice guy and he was just like all right, So he might get out on good behavior early or something like that. He might just eventually get thrown out not thrown out, but might be released early. So he obviously didn't mean for that to happen. He's probably completely guilt-ridden as well. Yeah, but you still have to, you still be still responsible for it.
Speaker 1:It was creating more precedents for future situations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Yeah, he was more of an example Yeah, Yeah, that's possibly right.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I just have one more, and this one's very interesting. Now, this is really fun And this involves the tourism industry, the industry that everyone knows that Joe and I work in and were professionals in. This happened in 2017. So there was a South Korean man named An Sang-Kwan who set up a travel agency that specialized in visiting North Korea. Very, very unusual for a South Korean to do this, because South Koreans can't visit North Korea without special organization, like for business. In the past they were able to go to, like Gungangsan and places like that. But anyway, this man on South Korean National, set up a travel agency called North Korean Travel Agency in Europe Limited, based out of Cardiff in Wales.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it was a registered company. It was a limited that was registered with the UK government. Its company number is easy to find online. It's company number 10783345. So it's a legitimate company, fully legit, but, like I said, it's very difficult to do, not only because South Koreans generally themselves can't go to North Korea, but it's generally very difficult to travel North Korea anyway. There are, because you have to make sure that you're not overstepping sanctions, you have to get through travel bans, things like that, and you have to have contacts in North Korea to help you get accepted to organize your tour, because your tours are fully organized and observed by North Korean officials. So very difficult to set up, not impossible.
Speaker 1:No, i know I knew two people who did set those up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so they were not Korean.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So the company released promo videos hosted by a woman named Tatiana That's what she says. Her name is Tatiana And they are on YouTube and you can still say they're still on YouTube And we'll put a link to one of the videos so you can have a look. Very short, very low quality, but have a look Very, very interesting. So they you know the video say they arrange all the requirements. What you need, the first thing that you need to do, is first visit China. You have to go to China first And then, once you're in China, it's all set up. You meet up with the company representatives, then you take a train to North Korea. So now all this was set up, like I said, completely legit, organized. But there was one problem, one very big problem. Okay, the founder, an Sang-kwan, was dead. Oh, before the company was even established, he was already dead. A bit weird.
Speaker 1:Okay, and like zombie.
Speaker 2:This assumed that the name An Sang-kwan was actually the name of a Korean fugitive who committed suicide in the Philippines at the Philippine airport Philippines airport, i think, in Manila, but anyway in the Philippines in 2016, a year before the company was established. So it turned out that An's name, his full name, his date of birth, his nationality, nationality, everything, everything about him all matched the information given to the UK government for the establishment and the registration of the company. Wow. So what likely happened is that An's ID was stolen, so install his ID, the ID of a person, of a dead criminal, and use the name to set up a travel company to North Korea. So now, interestingly, the company was dissolved about a year later, in 2018, but the social media remained active. In 2020, they posted an anti-Donald Trump message on their Facebook page, so they were still fairly active.
Speaker 2:So who was An Now not the criminal, who was the person posing as him? The posing as An? Likely, it turns out, it was a person who goes by the name of Anthony Croft, who is known to have been an imposter in the past, to have stolen other IDs and to pretend to be other people. He Croft, if that is his real name, or the person's name anyway might be a woman previously claimed to be the North Korean honorary consul in Helsinki on his LinkedIn page. So Croft and people were able to contact the person later denied to have had anything to do with the establishment or ownership of the Korean travel agency in Europe limited. So the entire thing remains a mystery. But when asked whether this company is going to come back later, the answer was oh yes we will So if anyone's interested in visiting North Korea don't use this company.
Speaker 2:So there you go, and those are the four offbeat and one very unfortunate news reports of the last little while.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, now for my turn. I might know a little bit more. They're more current and they're a little bit more social issues. But we all remember when the live action Little Mermaid trailer first came out, there were people in the very dark, dark butt cracks of the internet were complaining about that the the aerial had a different skin color than the one in the cartoon, and I mean then there was a backlash to that backlash And that was kind of like okay, you know we're. This is silly that people are make such a big deal of that. And then recently the little mermaid came out and has done very well in the US and other Western countries, i think better than some of the other live action remakes have done.
Speaker 1:Has not done that way in Korea and China And it has not come out yet in Japan. So we don't know about that, but it basically was. There's still the racial backlash here And I'm now focused on no, china was really. I mean, china was really just like. I mean nothing barely made a bump in China, korea as well, and I remember my daughter wanted to go see it. We were planning to go see it, but it is not done well in Korea. I think it's already gone. You can't, you can't watch, you can't find it anymore. But people online saying like that one you. One person said that that change in the race of aerial ruined it for them with the hashtag not my aerial, so weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, koreans care about that, it's just so yeah well, this is it.
Speaker 1:I mean, this is people, don't bring it up, this it's a kind of a kind of a dark monster that that would not really approach. Is there still kind of a little bit of a racism here? And it's because I think it's because Korea has not been, has not had many chances to be confronted about it, that we still get this. I mean, we're still having black faces instances on TV Right And kind of inappropriate depictions of Africans and Africans, of African Americans and and businesses and books, things like that.
Speaker 2:And just the generally, the overall treatment of non Koreans, from from other Asians to to Europeans, north Americans, of any race if they're. There's kind of widespread mistreating at the administrative level level to the entertainment of non Koreans. Yeah, it's definitely an issue still.
Speaker 1:So it's just one of those cases where I was thinking I was kind of hoping that that Korea was getting better And it's still got a ways to go. I mean, anytime I bring something like this up, someone who doesn't live here will say, well, insert Western country here. Will America does this to? America does this to? I'm like, yeah, but look at the numbers for the little mermaid And that's kind of like that's proof right there, yeah, and I don't know.
Speaker 1:Okay, so during COVID I think we talked about this a bit. I think it was one of the sole podcasts that we talked about. This was there. There's a lot of in America. There's a lot of anti Asian. There's there incidents of anti Asian racism. There You have the stop Asian hate movement, yeah, yeah, and we all supported that. We all support that still, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is where I'm going to get really controversial is is there were and I was scared. I was scared because EJ and GM were still in America when COVID started and we were. I was worried about their safety. But though those incidents tend to come from individuals in many cases, in some cases, you know, mentally unstable individuals And those were violent cases Now in Korea. We didn't have violent cases here, but we tended to have institutional racism or institutional, as in this, mostly happening in Gyeonggi Province but was happening in Seoul. Until there's enough backlash in Seoul, where one there was a small outbreak of COVID and a factory with foreign workers, and Gyeonggi Province made every single foreigner in the province get tested, didn't even require that the other Koreans working in the factory get tested. Just by nature of being foreign, you need to be tested. I didn't do it. I said fuck you. Yeah, i remember you. Yeah, remember you doing that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i didn't do it. I didn't do it either. I refused. Yeah, but and I was I was trying to convince other people, other foreigners, like don't do it. Just what are they going to do to arrest all of us? Please do You know? make this an issue, make it a global issue. And it ended up kind of becoming a minor issue for a short time, because governments were starting to, embassies were starting to complain.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, but that was when it was in Seoul, and so, in Seoul, seoul backtracked on that one, yeah, and so, and, but Kyung, you didn't, and that.
Speaker 2:this is why EJ, ej Meung the, the guy who is running for the liberal, the liberal party here, yeah, which is a fake, which is actually just a centrist party That lean's left, but it leans left, kind of backwards, left facing, facing right. That's why he's, he's a Awful, awful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, yeah, he was Gyeonggi governor at the time and he was the one promoting this. I think he was trying to get some cheap, cheap votes from Nationalists. He's a piece of shit and that's. That's one topic we've been I've been trying to explore Eventually is why it does seem like right is left and left is right in Korea, where the the so-called Progressives, tend to hold more Social right-wing views.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we know why the conservatives are more accepting of Of immigration here compared to conservatives in in the West is because the conservatives here, who are also very much, you know, connected to to corporatism and they, they and the economy, they know That more foreign workers doing jobs that Koreans, young Koreans, don't want to do, kind of refuse to do Mm-hmm. Creating the false idea of there being, you know, no jobs in Korea Means that they get more money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're classic, the classic old-school corporate conservatives. They're Bob Dole conservatives. Yeah, um, yeah, anyway, um. So, anyway, anytime people say like, oh well, you know. Uh, people say, well, america does this too, and I'm like, and for a lot of topics, and like, yeah, but Korea kind of does it ten times more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my and we've and we've mentioned like these types of things before, and then my again. My Response to that is that we're not talking about this is a Korea centric part. We live in Korea, our focus is on Korea. But in this type of issue, when we're in conversation with somebody and then they say, oh well, yeah, if this other country does it well, so what does? it? doesn't make it Okay. It doesn't make it okay, doesn't justify it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as in what? Korea just needs to be a follower, and not a leader, in human rights right.
Speaker 2:Now the my, my issue. Like I'm not interested in this movie. It's not for me, i'm not the demographic, i don't care about it, i'm not going to go watch it. Uh, i'm never going to watch it. My daughter doesn't like princesses, she doesn't care. I've asked her if she wants to see it, she's like nope, don't care, she. She didn't even finish the the first disney little mermaid. Um, just she, just she was like I don't care, i don't care what happens to this character. I'm just like okay, all right, fine, let's watch something else. You don't like it, you don't like it, that's fine. Um, and so I'm not going to go see the movie, so it's not going to have my financial support.
Speaker 1:Um, i'm a big fan. I'm the fan of alan minkin, and how are ashman the composers? and so, okay, it's the music, it's the music that I like.
Speaker 2:Well, i'll just buy the cd if that was the case for me, but, Um, so it'd have my money that way. So The the problem that this kind of thing, an extra problem that it creates, is that when people genuinely don't like a film, if they watch you're like I just didn't like that movie, um, it, um. It creates then An idea that, oh, you didn't like it because of the racial Con, the racial issues surrounding it, and I hate that too. That really bothers me. Where there could be some legitimate, um, criticisms of the film. So I know, i know, actually, pierce so pierce conran, or, who's been on our podcast a couple of times, professional movie critic in television critic um, he didn't like this movie. He's absolutely not a racist, absolutely, absolutely not. So he, he, um, he reviewed the film And he, he just gave it two out of five stars. He said it's not a very, it's just not a very good movie.
Speaker 1:Most of the remakes have been awful. The only one that was acceptable was cinderella.
Speaker 2:I didn't, yeah, and I didn't see that, don't care about that either, but um, but He is. So pierce's criticism was based on film, right, and he, and he's just like I, just not a very good movie. It's, you know, the pacing is not very good, the narrative is not very good, it's not a good movie and um and so. But he also then highlighted that. But I'm also not the demographic, so I'm not who this movie is aimed at. So maybe that's partially why he said, but in a larger sense, it's not a very well constructed film, um, so, yeah, and so this type of thing creates an even broader issue where it's difficult to have a legitimate complaint about a, about a film, because of all these fucking racists who don't like it. And then, and then they in for this one simple thing of having, uh, um, what's the actress's name? hally berry? Oh, yeah, how that's right, it sounds like, um, it sounds like the famous actress, hally berry, the famous, the older one, right? But it's a young actress, is it? is that her name, hally berry?
Speaker 1:I don't know, i think it is, i think it is. Hold on. I see, this is how much little I know about it.
Speaker 2:Okay, I remember it's reading it. It looks like that, but I think the pronunciation is different. But anyway, but um People based around the fact that she's the lead, so um.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. Yeah, it is Okay, it is. For some reason, i part of me was thinking, well, maybe they digitally altered Her.
Speaker 2:Make her look younger.
Speaker 1:No, it is a. It is a younger actress. I'm so stupid. I am so stupid.
Speaker 2:I think she's also. It's the same actress who's now in the color purple, the remake of the color purple. Um, but but anyway, um, so, um, yeah, and then then this whole thing just creates all these different issues. That just makes the whole thing worse, where, because this becomes such a focus that People who do, like I said, people who do have legitimate criticisms of, of, of, uh, of a film, often have difficulty expressing them. Um, because, oh, it's bailey, that's why Oh?
Speaker 1:What is wrong with me, what is wrong with me, that's Okay. I can't read it.
Speaker 2:I can't read man And you got halle berry on the mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, of course. I always have halle berry on my mind. Not a bad thing to have on the mind, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, but anyway, yeah, this is all horseshit. Let's let people like stuff. Fuck sakes, who cares? Yeah, and if you want to talk about mermaids, um, you talk to a folklorist. This is why folklorists need to be there needs. There needs to be more Folkloreists in media who get interviewed when stuff like this happens. When's the last time anyone saw folklorists being interviewed on on national news about this type of thing?
Speaker 1:Anyway, I mean disney did not create the character of them. I did not create the little mermaid. It's from hawn's christian anderson I think. I remember way back when it first came out people were talking about a redhead mermaid.
Speaker 2:Well, i mean, like even the, the original disney, like the way it's done, is different, very different from anderson's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I was. I was in a. I was in a play, the little mermaid before the movie came out. Even that play had to happy and that play was altered a bit. But yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's very, very different, and then it's very, very different from the folklore itself. So Talk to folklorists, man, they need to be interviewed when it comes to stuff like this. I hate that they, i hate that they're not. Oh, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:But anyway, anyway, you know that's horseshoe Yeah um, the other one is uh, this is pride month, we're recording the story in pride month and there's always been for the, i think for good. Well, there's been a pride parade or pride related uh festival in front of, so sit, so plaza, so city hall, and We see, you know, we also have christian hate groups that are trying to always try to block out the And what they do is basically the kind of rule is uh, any, any group can use the venue, uh, it just it's first come, first serve. So it's always been people camping out and who can get that venue first, right. But now that we got conservatives and the presidency and the mayorship, uh, and it's, it was kind of fast tracked, uh, so it didn't. it was a little bit of a mess, so it didn't.
Speaker 1:It went to the soul metropolitan council Before anyone had a chance to do anything, and this christian youth concert is going to Be there instead. So, um, in fact this is what's disturbing is the soul metropolitan council unanimously, unanimously, Voted to have to not have the, the pride festival there, right, yeah, so, and I remember some, some, some of my facebook friends were, were participating, were doing this, they were, um, camping outside police stations, uh, to try to get Make sure they ensure that they would have permission. They're going to create a rainbow relay Like this is a big street along street for the festival And going to each individual police station at a time and trying to beat the the hate groups from blocking them.
Speaker 1:Oh man, it's just been nuts, It's um, so now it's going to be the parade. the parade is going to take all uh take place on uh Oh it did, it did get re uh Revenued is that a rude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what. That's what they did, is they? they? they camped out of these police stations and created this rainbow relay. There's this. They connect the dots. They created this street to do this. Oh good, yeah, um, yeah, uh. This is according to stenographic records of the committee meeting. On may 3rd, the committee approved the christian event, citing the rights of others not to want to look at them, meaning the, the, uh, the queer participants Fucking look at them then, jesus, it's like I don't want to read that and the negative fucking read it.
Speaker 1:There's a quote negative impacts the queer event could have on children's sexual education.
Speaker 3:Oh, oh, you mean, you mean of not of having zero sexual education.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, korea's got such a great sex sex ed program for kids Wonderful, good grief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is actually in the record, right, actually in the record. So you're talking about, you have This is actually institutionalized, right, and but okay, that's one thing if they're like against, you know rights of others not having to look at them. But you go look across the street at duxiogun palace, across the street and it is plastered with these hatefield red colored posters from the right wingers And they've been like this since, since, uh, puck and hay got impeached, uh, and this is what's funny is is it's basically just these old men, they, they didn't do anything. It's what, during when the people trying to impeach puck and hay, and Then when she actually got impeached, they came out of their, um, their shitholes and started protesting. They were nasty, they did. They curse a lot. I just cursed, but they were cursing for any children, you know, they were there's so mean spirited and, uh, then the corona happened and they were like, oh, but we were still need to protest. They're the only ones that were really protesting most of the time trying to protest during corona. Um, they ended up getting what they wanted. Puck and hay was released, they got the president They wanted, they got the mayor they wanted.
Speaker 1:But these guys are so hooked on protesting. They just keep coming with other reasons to protest. Um, and it's just minor little. Uh, there's so many things, it's just lists of grievances they have, um, and so every time I'm taking my tours down that way, we just have to pass by this wall of hate And it's there's a tent, there's an anti-vax tent. That's been there for a while, a long time, and just this. They're just camped out And like how is this allowed? And how is this not like the rights of others not to look at things? How how people are allowed to look that tourists see this, yeah, yeah. And how is this acceptable when that the other thing is not acceptable?
Speaker 2:I've noticed that a lot of their large protests in the past several months they now have English translations. Oh, they do. They have an English speaker there now. That's way more common these days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do that And in our tours it's usually. it's usually the the, the protest is finished and the guys are breaking up a bit, but we'll occasionally get a belligerent guy following us and talking to us and yelling slogans at us And I'd say just ignore him. ignore him like like you would any crazy person on the street.
Speaker 2:We passed. This is only related in a, in a peripheral sense, but the we were walking along the door them get along Booksegung, the other wall, last week And there was a one man ceremonial table set up to honor the spirit of no me. Oh yeah, we said that And yeah it was. It was actually a because it was the anniversary of his suicide.
Speaker 1:No me on. Was the president who committed suicide a long time ago, over 10 years ago. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so and actually gave me an opportunity because it was a full setup of a full Chesa was set up with like a ceremony for the death ceremony at a table for the for ancestral spirits, and so actually gave me an opportunity to explain it to oh my gosh to the guests was like well, well, here you go, here's living, here's living folklore, see it right here.
Speaker 2:And then, and then the dude, the old guy who had it set up, he came over, gave us a really, really deep bow And I just oh, yeah, and then yeah, that's touching. Yeah, and we left. He didn't say anything to us.
Speaker 1:I trust that with the people I have to deal with from the other side, the right wingers, they're just so. they say just you know, case I key this and case I key that, and just just yeah, they're bored with non issues.
Speaker 2:A lot of people have to create issues in order to well be fulfilled. I might say, you'll think they have to be angry, they have to protest things.
Speaker 1:And that was left and right. We're seeing it. True, that's all the truth, true. But my explanation is that a lot of these, a lot of these are retired men who feel useless at home and they're basically otherwise, are kicking them out and they have to tap something to do And go protest or something. And that's their addiction, that's their thing to do, it's a club and it's like that's what they do And it just makes them feel powerful. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway. So not only, but this is this is more disturbing is some of the college university campuses are refusing gay gay pride events, many parades and such. Didn't hear about that. Yeah, now we don't know. We don't know if it's really just administration saying that. Oh, you know, they said a large number of complaints, voicing opposition by mail and e people service. I really doubt it. If it really, i don't think students are. If anyone's doing that, it has to be an organized anti-gay group that's doing this.
Speaker 2:And the way you can do it, because if it's emails and stuff, you can just create bots to send emails from various, you know, ready made email addresses. It's easy to send thousands of emails now to complain about something, but this is where this is where the reality, they showed the true colors here.
Speaker 1:One of the quotes were unofficial. If the festival goes ahead on campus, we will face negative attitudes and pressure from the public. It can also, here we go, have a negative impact on next year's government financial support assessments.
Speaker 2:Oh, I see your true color shining through.
Speaker 1:Institutional, my friends. Institutional, yeah. And then this this relates to another one was a human rights boss made crude homophobic anal rupture claim in a draft ruling about hair length in the military and nothing to do with anal sex. really has nothing to do with hair length in the military, but he found a way to push that into and he tried to make it part of the record and he was blocked from putting the record. And this is a human rights commissioner.
Speaker 2:Well, moon Jae-in was a human rights lawyer and he opposed gay marriage. So I mean, and he's supposed to be the leftist? Yeah, most politicians who say they're leftist aren't leftist. Yeah, don't trust any of them.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read this article. According to the Gyeonghyeong Shin Moon, which is a newspaper and SBS TV TV news, the commissioner said that queer men who engage in anal penetration which he described as taking on a female role to the point their anus is ruptured, is leading them to wear a wearing a diaper, or doing so willingly, are not victims of human rights violations.
Speaker 2:This human rights commissioner saying this So weird And I wonder how that well, i mean sodomy, i guess it's, you know in a Christian. For the Christians that's definitely. It's bad news, probably for other religions as well.
Speaker 1:They don't Yeah. Sodomy can be. Can have a very wide definition though, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Very, very much. It's not just anal.
Speaker 1:It's not just male, male anal sex or anything. No Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a very, very wide. Some women like it too.
Speaker 1:So I mean but yeah, sodomy can have a very liberal definition. Yeah.
Speaker 2:As long as it's two consenting adults and no one's getting hurt, who cares who? I don't give a fuck, but people do. As long as no one, no animal, is getting hurt And you're not, you know no children are involved. Yeah, do not give a shit. You're not doing it in public somewhere.
Speaker 1:This is shown to rehab long ways to go on this. Hey, another news BTS is having the 10th anniversary this month And and I remember there was talks about like for pride, for pride month or for some pride thing, like it would be cool if the government, you know, did some rainbows And the government says no, we don't, we don't do stuff like that for private, you know, we don't do government sanctions, stuff like that. But now the government's going to be turning everything purple and on our BTS.
Speaker 2:That's so silly, that is so goofy. Yeah, a goofy thing to do.
Speaker 1:Ansel Tower, latte World Tower Sejong Latte World Tower is not government. Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, sevit Island. You know, jose Hun's Boondoggle. Dongdaemun Design Plaza, banpo, yonghwa, yongdong and World Cup Bridges, seoul City Hall and Gwanghwamun Square, dogummi, purple and Sina Rainbows. I think that's funny because I mean, in the conservative, most of the conservative Muslims leaders they believe that the Korean wave is represents LGBT issues. Wave does Because it shows the physical contact between men and men. You know, because Korean men hold hands. You know, and they have skin-ship. Skin-ship I love that term. This creepiest conglish there is Weird, yeah, yeah. So I went and I was checking in. Okay, well, what does BTS? BTS tends to be, i mean, they've spoken to you and counsel about human rights and stuff, and. But they did they did So.
Speaker 1:Silly too, I know, but it's kind of funny because one of the leaders the group's leader, rm, has tweeted in support for songs that promote LGBT issues, like Michael Lamorne, ryan Lewis's hit Same Love and also Troy Savan's song Strawberry's and Cigarettes. Troy Savan is gay And RM has tweeted that he likes these songs. He loves the lyrics of these songs. So you kind of see that. But then I do this. Okay, i'll say this. I've been playing a lot with Bing, the search engine, bing, microsoft, with their new AI thing, and it's fun. It's fun playing with it. So I typed in what does BTS, what does BTS's position on LGBTQ issues? And Bing says this BTS has spoken out on LGBTQ rights and mental health issues. They have shown solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement by making a donation of $1 million. However, i couldn't find any official statement on their position on LGBTQ issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i don't know. Honestly, I think BTS's involvement in anything is through corporate mandate. I'm sorry to all the fans, it's through corporate mandate. It's the same thing as Samsung in the United States putting the rainbow flag on their Twitter, but Samsung Korea not doing it. But the corporate masters that run BTS because it is a company I'm sorry, all those members are employees. Them speaking out against any of these issues makes sales records, sales songs for them, because the majority of their listener base are the younger, more progressive, aware, worldly intelligent, younger people. So, yeah, i think it's all corporate. So their involvement in any of this stuff is just, it's all corporate mandate. The company is just like money, money, money, money. If it was the opposite, if they could make money doing something else, that's what they would do. So I think it's all just, it's arranged. It's arranged progressivism.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's any reality or truth to any of it at all. I think it's all corporate nonsense.
Speaker 1:Well, what I'm going to do. the 10th anniversary event is going to be on June 17th, So I might just move the release of this episode up so that it comes out before then, Because I think it would be very amusing if BTS made a statement in support of Pride Month during this government sponsored event on June 17th. Now, that would be, that would be.
Speaker 2:Oh, I wouldn't be surprised because the majority, because their sales would go through the roof.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get that, But I just it'd be corporate mandate.
Speaker 2:It'd be a corporate. I know I'm against corporations suddenly being for all these social issues. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. Where, like airplane, airliners will paint their planes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i get that. I get that might be fake, but I would love it. My hatred of the corporate mandate Trump's is trumped by how red-faced it would make the Korean government if they did that.
Speaker 2:Because they're, i'll say you're linking it to them, putting these During a government sponsored event.
Speaker 1:They're making the entire city purple, while at the same time they're blocking all the rainbows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what's the purple thing about? I don't even know what that's about. That's their color. Oh, the band has a color.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have a logo, They have a color. I mean, come on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i had no idea.
Speaker 1:That's why I'm joking, i'm just going to pretend. the town turned purple and on her prints.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, right, You posted that. That's right. Yeah, Right, right, right, i forgot. Yeah, i'm just I'm. So I think that I think that'd be funny, but at the same time, if that happened, this corporate man did it.
Speaker 1:That's fine If it makes the sole government red-faced for me.
Speaker 2:But it's not genuine. I mean, it's disinfinious.
Speaker 1:I'm not worried about that, I'm just saying it's going to piss off the right people. I'm more concerned. I say like, whatever, that's a small, that's a small backtrack, It's a bigger victory to make the government red-faced. And it's like the enemy is my enemy is my friend. The enemy and my enemies are my friend. In this case It's no.
Speaker 2:I think the government wouldn't. I disagree, i think the government wouldn't care. I wouldn't be surprised if the government would actually know it was going to happen because they're in cahoots with the corporation that owns and runs BTS. So it would happen And the corporation the owners of BTS would probably have, you know, having drinks and dinner with with government officials and saying, oh so yeah, we're going to have them announce that they're in support of LGBTQ plus issues and rights and things like that, and yeah, so they're going to, it's going to. You know, we'll get a ton, a ton of sales and probably maybe we'll see if we can get some more people visiting Korea and then more money for the government. The government's like chuching. They're all in cahoots. All of them are linked together. I don't believe for a second that anything from the government or BTS is genuine. It's all horseshit. Okay, and that's my, that's my very pessimistic view of of of authority and the rich. Wow.
Speaker 1:We'll return to the podcast after this message.
Speaker 3:Take a walk. There's 500 years of ghastly murders, forbidden history and hidden scandals. Listen to tales of Korea's deepest, darkest secrets. What lies under the concrete or the dark side of soul coast. walk at darksideofsoulcom. But now, if you dare.
Speaker 1:So very opinionated episode we have today, right at the end anyway. I warned you guys. I'll warn you. I'm sure we're going to get canceled from the left and the right for today's episode. I don't give a fuck.
Speaker 2:Oh boy, cancel away. All right, it was fun though. Yeah, those are some interesting, interesting issues. Yeah, fun, fun talking about all of them.
Speaker 1:Oh, please. I mean please, participate in the conversation. This be nice, or I will censor you.
Speaker 2:I won't censor, i just won't. I just won't reply, i'm saying okay, all right.
Speaker 1:All right, So I'm just going to say the the the so Dark Side of Soul podcast is produced by John McPherson and Sean Morrissey. Our opening closing music is by Sartrex Sound, which you can find on Bankcamp under Digi Digital. We also have our comics. You can get over at Dyson Comics Cafe near Jangham Pyeong Station or you can order directly through our website at darksideofsoulcom. You can also join our Patreon and subscribe to help support the show. Subscribe to our Patreon at wwwsupatroncom.
Speaker 1:You're not just supporting the show, but you get a lot of extra content And there are multiple tiers. You can just start at $5 a month and get a lot of extra content and you get even more at different levels. At the top level, you get your name announced on the air and some other perks as well More perks on top of that. We'd like to thank our top tier patrons Angel Earl, Joel Bonamini, Sharon Cullen, Devin Hiffner, Min Suk Lee, Ryan Birkebal, Gabby Palamino, Steve Marsh, Chad Strauss, Mitchie Brewer, Sarah Ford, Jane Kong, Ron Chang, Mackenzie Moore, Hunter Winter and Cecilia Lufgren-Dumas. She's been gradually telling me different ways to pronounce her name. She's like every week she's like, okay, change this to this. And I'm like, okay, So I'm getting closer to pronouncing her name correctly. Good, Good, Hey, everyone, Thank you for bearing with us. Be careful out there Until next time. Stay spooky night.