Dark Days in TY

In the course of three days, one of my friends got attacked with a sign post, another got attacked with a knife, and a third got raped. All incidents happened in or near my friend's apartments. All of them are foreigners.

Wednesday (I think), Arthur heard a racket outside of his place in rural Dosan. Some wacko outside was yelling incomprehensible Hangul and waving around a signpost. While the every Korean within shouting distance had the good sense to stay inside with their doors locked, Arthur decided investigate. Maybe he tried to reason with the fellow, I don't know. Whatever Arthur said resulted in the man lunging at him with the aforementioned sign-post. Arthur escaped inside without incurring bodily damage, but the nutter with the sign did smash a mirror off of his scooter and bashed up his door a bit too.

When the cops got there, they quickly discovered three things: the fellow was drunk to the gills, he was convinced that Arthur had murdered a kitten, and that the man was totally bat-shit insane (he had in fact just been released from a mental institution).

The same day, a female friend decided to go drinking with another one of the foreigners here. They were drinking outside of a Family Mart (think Korean 7-11) in Jungnim (the newest development in Tongyeong). When they decided to go home, a Korean man convinced them to let them share the cab with them. When my friend went into her apartment, apparently the Korean man followed her and forced his way in... she flew back home by the next Friday.

The next day, we all got together for a photo scavenger hunt. It was a big success, and we all had a great time. We drank a lot afterward, so I can sympathise with Krista when she passed out immediately after hitting the pillow. Unfortunately she was only asleep for five minutes until a man woke her up by pressing a knife to her throat, yelling at her to give him her money.

So, Krista gave him her money, asked him why he was doing what he was doing and the man had a sudden change of heart. He put the knife on a table gave the money back and eventually left.

I was under the impression that Korea, and by extension, Korea, was a relatively crime-free place. That's the impression everyone used to jump to give me, anyway. My perspective has changed awfully fast though. Funny how the shit always seems to hit the fan all at once.