西洋오랑캐

So I have a girlfriend which means I don’t have as much time to do things like watch really crappy TV, or look at internet porn, or even read the news. So with that being said, most of you have probably already heard this story. Since there was a shocking piece of video footage to go along with the story, it quickly became important world news. I first heard the story on NHK and were it not for the little 韓国 appearing on the screen I wouldn’t have known that it was a Korean related story at all (since I can’t understand Japanese at all). Anyhow on with the news story!

SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean subway train started away with a baby in a stroller stuck in its doors on Thursday, and the whole incident was caught on surveillance video.

The video showed the 30-year-old mother wheeling her baby’s stroller into the train.

The doors closed with the mother still standing on the platform when the train started off.

Unable to pull the stroller from the doors, the mother and a bystander were dragged along the subway platform as they held on.

The mother said she grabbed her baby out of the stroller, but her jacket was still stuck between the doors.

After going about 30 yards, the train stopped at the end of the platform.

The baby was not injured, but the mother suffered minor head injuries.

Video Here

Now I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what happened prior to the woman attempting to enter the subway car, but I can say that I’m not surprised at all that this happened. In fact what is surprising is that it doesn’t happen more often. I can not count the number of times I have seen people (including women with strollers) attempt to board subway trains while the doors are closing. Now I too have boarded the subway in a fashion akin to Indiana Jones grabbing his hat from under that stone door in Temple of Doom, but there is a big difference between me and these women, that being I don’t have a helpless child with me.

But Korea is a nation that is hell-bent on doing things quickly. I can’t count how often I hear “빨리! 빨리! (Quickly! Quickly!)” bellowed on any given day. Koreans want to get there faster and finish quicker, regardless of what the task is. This is the reason bus drivers drive like they are the only people on the road, paying no mind to the carnage they leave in their wake. This is why delivery men haul ass on sidewalks attempting to avoid traffic jams. This is why a previous girlfriend who shall not be named, would call a pizza place if they hadn’t delivered to our house 15 minutes after we ordered. And this is why my students will rush to finish their classwork.

I can’t really understand this need to rush through life that seems to dominate all areas of life here. My students, for example, rush to finish their work. If their writing is illegible, or there are countless spelling or grammatical mistakes I will erase what they had written and make them do it again. The end result? They usually end up being the last ones to finish…though had the taken the time to do it well the first time they would have finished when everyone else did instead of 5 minutes later because they needed to be the first to yell, “I’m finished!”

Anyhow back to the news story at hand, I’m glad the woman and child weren’t seriously injured, but I hope that she and the population at large learn to slow down with somethings.