Hi guys, it's Simon and I'm doing this week's TLDR
by myself because Martina unfortunately has food poisoning and she's feeling
a bit too sick to handle this week's TLDR. I didn't want to skip this week's TLDR though
because it's about a very important topic.
I'll be talking a bit about the Sewol Ferry Crash
and about what it means here in Korea.
As a lot of you might have noticed,
we haven't been posting any videos since Thursday because
of the Sewol Ferry Incident.
Most of the videos that we post are very lighthearted
and silly and have us goofing off
and I just didn't feel like it would be right for us to be this silly
in light of how serious it is here in Korea right now.
We're not the only ones who have postponed our videos
a lot of entertainment companies in Korea also have stopped posting their comedy shows
and live music performances
because Korea, right now, is kind of in a state of mourning.
For those of you who don't know what the Sewol Ferry Incident is,
I'm going to give you a brief rundown.
Basically on April 16, a ferry carrying 476 passengers capsized
Another thing that makes this tragedy such a severe one is that a lot of the people on the boat were
students. At the time I'm filming this video, 174 people were rescued
64 were confirmed dead, and another 238 are missing
It's feared that the wonder for saving these people has passed
So it's also feared that the 238 people are probably...dead.
Now, that major problem that I'm going to have with this week's TLDR is this:
Majority of the TLDRs that we do mostly involves us telling stories about personal experiences that we've had here in Korea.
When it comes to this ferry incidence, though, we don't have any first hand personal experiences with this whatsoever.
The closest experience that we have is that two of our closest friend were actually teachers to a lot of these students.
And, we personally can see how devastated our friends are by this whole event.
In fact, there is now one person in Korea who I have spoken with about this event that is in complete distraught as well.
In the six year that we have been in Korea, this has to be the worst thing that has ever happened.
I know a whole lot of people that didn't give a sh*t whatsoever when Kim Jong Il died.
And, every year, when North Korea gives a whole bunch of threats about covering us in a ocean of fire
Nobody blinks an eye.
But I haven't met a single person who isn't visibly upset about what is happening on this boat.
A lot of the sentiment here, though, isn't one only of sadness. But, also of extreme frustration.
In our TLDRs, outside of talking about our personal experiences, we also try and talk about any reports or any news that we see about specific events.
The frustration that we're feeling and that a whole lot of other people are feeling as well is that the news covering this event has been extremely unreliable.
It has been very unhelpful; It has often been hype sensationalist. And, many times, it has given out false reports.
For example, when news of this first broke, we read reports that everybody on the boat was saved and we were very relieved.
Turns out, that in fact, it was all false.
Soon afterwards, the reports of text messages being sent from people trapped in the boat, sending them to their families and friends, and giving a lot of people false hope.
Turns out, that all of these text messages were fabricated as well.
There was also a false interview given by a girl that pretended to be one of the divers on the scene.
And that was aired on a news network as well.
Basically, the feeling that I'm having right now is that I'm very nervous about is what I can say in this video.
I don't want to speculate and I don't want to comment on a lot of the developments that I've heard because I'm not sure if they are going to be true or not.
Because, probably tomorrow, someone is going to say that everything that we read today is, in fact, false.
I know that CNN did a terrible job of handling the Malaysian airlines flight.
And, the news here in Korea is doing a pretty piss poor job as well.
Which is why I'm so hesitant to state anything but the basic fact about what's happening here.
The second feeling of frustration that a lot of people are having are with the captain of the ship.
The major issue that a lot of people are having is that: when the ship began to capsize, the captain told everybody to stay put and to not evacuate the ship.
And the sentiment that a lot of the people are feeling is that; if these people didn't stay put, and that if their captain actually ordered them to evacuate,
They would have probably been alive right now.
On top of that, not only did they not help the people get off the ship, but he was one of the people to get off as well.
Now, I don't know every single detail about that, but to me, it seems exceptionally cowardly.
Also supposedly, the accident itself was entirely preventable.
As a lot of the conditions for sailing that day, were not up to standards
And the third feeling of frustration is sadness, and comes from both us and from what a lot of people have said it online.
What can we do to help? Are there any charities we could support or is there anybody we can donate to?
I'd like to be support to some cause or some charity or donate to somebody, but I don't know what charity is the right one to give to.
Another feeling of frustration is coming from a lot of the things that are bring written about this accident.
I've read a few articles that are trying to say that this is indicative of South Korean culture as a whole
which is entirely unfair for anyone to think.
The terrible actions of a few men does not represent the over 50 million people that are in Korea.
No more than the videos that I do on YouTube represent all of Youtube as a whole either.
This is a terribly unfortunate accident and the only people that should be judged are the people that caused the accident, not the not country or the culture altogether.
So that's it for this week's TLDR.
I wish that there were something that I could teach you apart from nihilism.
I wish that there were something better that I could have shared with you.
Don't trust everything that you read or see about this event.
Because even though the news is supposed to tell you what's happening, in the spirit of getting hot breaking news, a lot of the times, they don't do a lot of fact checking.
And they are going to post anything to get views rather than truth.
And this isn't something unique to South Korea either.
I'm sure there are a lot of examples of sh*tty news reporting in your country as well.
I'm going to write a little more about this in our blog post. So, make sure you click on the link here if you want to read some more thoughts or if you want to engage in the conversations in the comments.
Our deepest condolences, here, in the EYK studio go out to all the people affected by this.
South Korean families and South Korean schools.
To all the families, friends and schools that are affected by this tragedy.
And, hopefully, we can all find a reason to smile again soon.