Money Today on the netizen response to the bus incident

Yesterday Money Today reported on the different responses netizens have had to the bus incident:

Ongoing war of words by netizens over bus disturbance by foreigner

Netizens continue to wage a war of words over the recent incident in which an American English instructor in his twenties assaulted an elderly person.

Recently a message was posted on a portal message board with the title "I hope people do not really hate foreign workers including instructors."

The writer said, "I worry about all the comments denigrating foreign instructors," and, "There are bad people, but only a few."

Actually, I’ve seen many cases in which Koreans, through staring at foreigners in amazement or using insulting language, have been disrespectful to the point of crossing the line with foreign instructors." "He deserves punishment for the assault, but we should look at how foreigners living as black people in Korean society have a great deal of stress and a victim mentality, and how this [can lead to] an explosion of anger."

On the other hand, writing about the “strange country in which foreigners hit Koreans” has received attention.

On the 30th, a message was posted on a portal message board wondering “what would happen to Koreans if they acted like this in America.”

The writer said "Letting him off for this or that reason would contradict the fairness and equality of the law." "The behavior seen in this incident stems from an attitude that very much looks down on Korea."

According to police, they were told that the American English teacher was in a conversation with a friend on a bus and became angry and engaged in profanity and violence after a passenger told them to be quiet. The English teacher was booked without detention for assault and injury.

It's nice to see some balance, though I imagine there are more comments condemning him than calling for tolerance out there (though it's nice to see letters like this one (published recently, but not about this incident) titled 'We must beware of extreme nationalism that calls for expelling foreigners"). Hopefully the netizens writing "all the comments denigrating foreign instructors" won't be invited to any immigration policy meetings. For a second time, I mean. Speaking of which, Anti English Spectrum has 7 or 8 posts about this on their site - far more than the number they had about the hagwon owner and teacher wanted for attempted murder.