Miss Asia Pacific World Contest in Korea a Disaster

[CDW]

Organiser, Lawrence Choi has apologised to competitors over their complaints.

In an email he said the competition had been "totally destroyed".
'Completely corrupt'

Fifty competitors from around the world attended the event in the hope of winning $20,000 and some girls were also offered plastic surgery.

Ms Willerton said: "They put us in a hotel with no beds, they often didn't feed us.

"I started complaining straight away, but they would always reply with 'you won't win the contest if you complain'.

"Then it moved onto bribery, sexual harassment. Girls were offered places in the competition in exchange for sex, in exchange for money, it was completely corrupt."

She said after being sexually harassed she and several others informed police.
'I am terribly sorry'

"When the police arrived they called in one of the chairmen of the pageant who actually got his wallet out straight away and we were all pushed back by the organisers so we couldn't speak.

"Our translator would not translate for us, so we were completely helpless."

Ms Willerton said she managed to arrange flights home but had not been reimbursed for the cost of the original flights which she was promised when she agreed to take part.

She said she was considering taking legal action against the organisers of the event.

The BBC contacted Mr Choi about Ms Willerton's allegations but has not received a response.

In his email to competitors Mr Choi said the committees in charge of booking the hotels and transport "did not keep the agreement".

He said: "In conclusion, it's fully my mistake and fault, I had only vision but forget reality. I am terribly sorry what happened here in Korea."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-15369197

Welcome to Korea.

[jakub]

Hey, people screw up events all over the world.

[CDW]

Hey, people screw up events all over the world.

Screw ups that involve pressuring the participants for sexual favors and bribing the police when they show up to respond to complaints about sexual harassment? Sure happens all the time....

[bobrocket]

Hey, people screw up events all over the world.

Screw ups that involve pressuring the participants for sexual favors and bribing the police when they show up to respond to complaints about sexual harassment? Sure happens all the time....

I'm sure I could 5min on google searching for curropt Beauty contests by nah, you do it.

[Seoulian]

People screw up events around the world so this is ok.
Logic fail.

This was a messed up situation. It's embarrassing to the people involved and Mr Choi should likely be prosecuted for sexual harassment and (attempted) sex trafficking.

 

[marsavalanche]

People screw up events around the world so this is ok.
Logic fail.

This was a messed up situation. It's embarrassing to the people involved and Mr Choi should likely be prosecuted for sexual harassment and (attempted) sex trafficking.

ROFL how long have you been in this country?  Sex trafficking? 

Choi and others will get a slap on the wrist at most.

This is Korea we're talking.

[scholes]

Do you think they will publish the story here?

[KLM]

If you think the goings-on at a minor-league beauty pageant such as the "Miss Asia Pacific World Contest" would in any case inherently reflect broader trends within the host country, you should reevaluate your opinion of the importance of minor-league beauty pageants.

Furthermore, all you white knights bravely standing up for the rights of women in Korea should let us know on which message boards you took drastic action regarding the approximately 213,000* annual victims of sexual assault in America, or the perhaps 150,000** sex slaves in the USA. Why restrict yourselves to one country, AMIRITE???

I'm no kimcheerleader, and we all know that misogyny can be disturbingly common in Korea (as it can in literally every other country on Earth), but using this sordid tale as a cudgel to bash Korea is logically unsound.

* http://www.rainn.org/statistics
** http://www.crisisaid.org/ICAPDF/Trafficking/traffickstats.pdf

[flasyb]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2050922/British-beauty-queen-Amy-Willerton-fled-international-pageant-sex-bribes.html

I know it's the Daily Mail (BOOO!!!) but it has more quotes. My favourite was:

"She was then horrified to discover her hotel room did not even have a bed.
Amy, who is single, said: 'There was just a blanket on the floor. I put up with it for two nights but then complained and they moved me to another hotel."

I agree with the others that sexual bribery and corruption at a beauty pageant is no news - certainly not Korea specific. However, this quote made me laugh. Classic everybody pile into the same room and sleep on roll-up mattresses on the ondol.

Plus:

"Ms Willerton said she managed to arrange flights home but had not been reimbursed for the cost of the original flights which she was promised when she agreed to take part." (BBC)

I'm sure a few of us will find ourselves in this boat, unfortunately.

There's a lot to love about these articles. Except the sexual abuse part, of course. Nobody likes that.

[CDW]

If you think the goings-on at a minor-league beauty pageant such as the "Miss Asia Pacific World Contest" would in any case inherently reflect broader trends within the host country, you should reevaluate your opinion of the importance of minor-league beauty pageants.

So we should assume that what goes on at a beauty pageant in Korea can not possibly have anything to do with broader trends within Korea? 

Furthermore, all you white knights bravely standing up for the rights of women in Korea should let us know on which message boards you took drastic action regarding the approximately 213,000* annual victims of sexual assault in America, or the perhaps 150,000** sex slaves in the USA. Why restrict yourselves to one country, AMIRITE???

I'm no kimcheerleader, and we all know that misogyny can be disturbingly common in Korea (as it can in literally every other country on Earth), but using this sordid tale as a cudgel to bash Korea is logically unsound.

* http://www.rainn.org/statistics
** http://www.crisisaid.org/ICAPDF/Trafficking/traffickstats.pdf

Talk about comparing apples to oranges....

[Brian]

Keep it on topic.

***

Anyway, here's a good recap of the scandal, with emails from the organizer:

http://www.criticalbeauty.com/Miss_Asia_Pacific_World_2011_Scandal.html

It has as much to do with organizers in way over their heads with an event this big, as it does with perverted and corrupt officials.  If you're looking to make broad, sweeping generalizations, you'd be better pursuing that angle than the corruption / harassment one considering how the pageant industry is built on both of those. 

By the way, this is already reported in the Korean press.  They got to it about the same time you all read about it on Facebook.  Just nothing in the English-language press in Korea.

[scholes]

If you think the goings-on at a minor-league beauty pageant such as the "Miss Asia Pacific World Contest" would in any case inherently reflect broader trends within the host country, you should reevaluate your opinion of the importance of minor-league beauty pageants.

Furthermore, all you white knights bravely standing up for the rights of women in Korea should let us know on which message boards you took drastic action regarding the approximately 213,000* annual victims of sexual assault in America, or the perhaps 150,000** sex slaves in the USA. Why restrict yourselves to one country, AMIRITE???

I'm no kimcheerleader, and we all know that misogyny can be disturbingly common in Korea (as it can in literally every other country on Earth), but using this sordid tale as a cudgel to bash Korea is logically unsound.

* http://www.rainn.org/statistics
** http://www.crisisaid.org/ICAPDF/Trafficking/traffickstats.pdf

Why not?
The took one fight on a bus blew it totally out of proportion. Yeah so it was an old guy that he assaulted but as you pointed out stats, we can safely say that in America it happens more too, but it doesn't get put on national news does it?

[Spongeblob]

Clearly this is all just a cultural misunderstanding.

These poor foreign girls were obviously lonely and riddled with foreign diseases.  The organizers knew the best thing to do was quarantine them together and offer to inject them with natural Korean antibodies.  As for the question of pay the organizers were clearly saving and investing their pay until exchange rates became more favorable.  A few of the organizers were driven to casinos to drown their sorrow over this unfortunate misunderstanding.  A local who was hauling cardboard at the time said, "Please help me" and "soon those foreigners will be taking away my jerb too."

Spongeblob Foreign News Agency.

[woman-king]

An English beauty pageant winner flew to Seoul to take part in an international competition and is now claiming she was groped, harassed, offered votes in exchange for sex, and that she and other women in the competition were kept in poor conditions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-15385271

Here in the sun she talks about being groped and propositioned by pageant officials--this article is more in-depth.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3881915/Beauty-queen-says-I-was-offered-votes-for-sex.html

Thoughts?  I understand that entering a beauty pageant is different than coming to teach in SK, but I feel I was given a wrong impression of how safe Seoul is for young Western women, and this story seems to underscore that.

[woman-king]

If you think the goings-on at a minor-league beauty pageant such as the "Miss Asia Pacific World Contest" would in any case inherently reflect broader trends within the host country, you should reevaluate your opinion of the importance of minor-league beauty pageants.

Furthermore, all you white knights bravely standing up for the rights of women in Korea should let us know on which message boards you took drastic action regarding the approximately 213,000* annual victims of sexual assault in America, or the perhaps 150,000** sex slaves in the USA. Why restrict yourselves to one country, AMIRITE???

I'm no kimcheerleader, and we all know that misogyny can be disturbingly common in Korea (as it can in literally every other country on Earth), but using this sordid tale as a cudgel to bash Korea is logically unsound.

* http://www.rainn.org/statistics
** http://www.crisisaid.org/ICAPDF/Trafficking/traffickstats.pdf

 

As I and others have pointed out time and again on this board, this isn't "bashing Korea."  We live in Korea as foreigners, hence stories of things that happen to other foreigners in Korea are especially interesting and worth talking about.  Rape stats in the U.S. don't affect me at all right now, whereas treatment and perceptions of foreign women in Korea are a part of my daily life.  So of COURSE I am interested in talking about a story like this with other foreigners.  The fact that rape happens elsewhere, or that rape is more common in the Congo than in Korea, is pretty irrelevant to my life right now, but the underlying perceptions that created this particular situation for these women are pretty damn relevant.

[woman-king]

Keep it on topic.

***

Anyway, here's a good recap of the scandal, with emails from the organizer:

http://www.criticalbeauty.com/Miss_Asia_Pacific_World_2011_Scandal.html

It has as much to do with organizers in way over their heads with an event this big, as it does with perverted and corrupt officials.  If you're looking to make broad, sweeping generalizations, you'd be better pursuing that angle than the corruption / harassment one considering how the pageant industry is built on both of those. 

By the way, this is already reported in the Korean press.  They got to it about the same time you all read about it on Facebook.  Just nothing in the English-language press in Korea.

Thing is, the corruption/harassment angle is probably a lot closer to personal situations teachers--particularly in bad hagwons--might encounter in Korea than the general structural disorganization, since I doubt too many of us are going to be involved in event-planning on this level.  I do agree the two issues seem like they were related in this case--disorganization breaking down into bribery and more sinister examples of people taking advantage of foreigners totally out of their comfort zone and with little support.  What I am curious about in this story, given some of my personal and of course, anecdotal experiences here with older Korean men in both professional and casual situations, is whether or not contact with foreign/white women was in any way used as an incentive to get dudes to work for this organization/pageant.  Probably impossible to determine, but it wouldn't surprise me if that were indeed the case.

I think it is worth pointing out--in case you read about this through the BBC, as I did--that the harassment wasn't limited to a case of crude "you make me happy, I make you happy" offerings, but actual gropings, pulling down tops, etc.  Actual forcible physical contact.

Korea is prepping to host the world in 2018--and a that will include a WHOLE lot of young, female foreign athletes who will be relying on Korean Olympic organizers.  A third-rate beauty pageant won't get that much international attention, but if something like this goes down in Pyeongchang it would be extremely damaging and this is as good a time as any for Korean officials to make an example of people who organize competitions where they bring foreigners into Korea, and then treat them poorly.

[flasyb]

^^
It ain't gonna happen in Pyeongchang. This was just some amateur guys with a bit of who organised a beauty pageant in the hope of getting some hot foreign female action. I think Koreans would be far too afraid of trying anything at the Pyeongchang Olympics because of the potential to cause national shame/embarrassment. Plus, it will be a different calibre of person involved in the Olympics so I doubt it would happen anyway. A group of guys trying to score with some foreign women at a second rate beauty pageant that they organised is not as indicative of a wider social problem as some people are trying to make out in this thread.

[woman-king]

^^
It ain't gonna happen in Pyeongchang. This was just some amateur guys with a bit of who organised a beauty pageant in the hope of getting some hot foreign female action. I think Koreans would be far too afraid of trying anything at the Pyeongchang Olympics because of the potential to cause national shame/embarrassment. Plus, it will be a different calibre of person involved in the Olympics so I doubt it would happen anyway. A group of guys trying to score with some foreign women at a second rate beauty pageant that they organised is not as indicative of a wider social problem as some people are trying to make out in this thread.

Well, hopefully you are right about the Olympics, it's the first thing I think of when reading stories like this, or the whole no-foreigners-in-the-spa thing.  I know Korea hosted the Olympics in 1980 but from what I've read, the racial atmosphere is more charged nowadays in many ways than it was then.  Globalized media and an influx of foreigners has changed things.

Also.  No one is saying that this article, itself, proves anything about Korean society.  When taken as one story among many others that indicate a similar impression of Western women as easy prey, and when taken alongside personal experience that backs up these other stories, it becomes another piece of evidence of a wider social trend. 

[flasyb]

Also.  No one is saying that this article, itself, proves anything about Korean society.  When taken as one story among many others that indicate a similar impression of Western women as easy prey, and when taken alongside personal experience that backs up these other stories, it becomes another piece of evidence of a wider social trend.

I see it more as a wider trend within the pageant "industry" itself rather than reflecting directly onto Korean society. Whether you're involved in a wet t-shirt competition or a second/third rate pageant like this one, there will always be pervs who think they can have a go. Shouldn't happen. Does happen. Be careful what you sing up for next time.

[woman-king]

Also.  No one is saying that this article, itself, proves anything about Korean society.  When taken as one story among many others that indicate a similar impression of Western women as easy prey, and when taken alongside personal experience that backs up these other stories, it becomes another piece of evidence of a wider social trend.

I see it more as a wider trend within the pageant "industry" itself rather than reflecting directly onto Korean society. Whether you're involved in a wet t-shirt competition or a second/third rate pageant like this one, there will always be pervs who think they can have a go. Shouldn't happen. Does happen. Be careful what you sing up for next time.

I see it as both--a combination of sleazy pageant culture with being a white young woman in a vulnerable position in Korea was clearly a bad mix.  The perception of Westerners as sexually promiscuous and available to anyone is hardly unique to Korea, but it absolutely does exist here, and women being sexually targeted because of their race happens here.  It's a good thing to raise awareness of for female expats, considering how many of them see Korea as 100%-crime-free and Korean men as completely benign, as the Western stereotype of Asian men often goes.