Synopsis:
The drama starts with Song Hye-Ri helping his dad at her home. She asks her dad why he continues to work, despite severely injuring himself from the work and also asks if he is not scared at all. His father replies saying that he is scared, but if he runs away his life will be over and being scared is not a bad thing but something that helps one to be cautious. Later the scene portrays An Jang-Mi being used as a scapegoat for the higher ups to avoid getting disciplinary actions. She shouts in anger telling them that they are cowards who hide behind a woman’s back to keep their positions. After the scene moves to Min Su-Man who is trying to commit suicide by burning himself in the car. Ki Han-Sol and Lee Sam-Bo who are his close friends, tries to calm him down so that he does not take action. However, Min Su-Man does set himself on fire, but Yeom Sang-Su and Oh Yang-Chon manages to put out the fire and rescues him. Kim Min-Seok is in a similar situation as Min Su-Man and the person who is obviously lying that he got injured because Kim Min-Seok pushed him to the ground is asking for 50 million Won as a settlement price. Later in the story the officers tries to help Kim Min-Seok by doing a fundraising campaign. Near the end of the episode a man barges into the convenient store and starts drinking. The worker tries to stop the man but the worker gets beat up. Oh Yang-Chon and others along with the other officer from the Myeongu department shows up to the scene and tries to stop the culprit. However, the other officer gets shot in the head and the episode ends.
Discussion:
In the drama live, viewers are introduced to the hardships of old people and people with disabilities living in Korea. Min Su-Man a former officer who is disabled due to accident from his work as an officer, Ki Han-Sol who has cancer and Lee Sam-Bo who is trying to pass the exam to become a heavy equipment operator after retiring from his work as an officer shares one common thing and that is poverty. “With rapid aging, many of the elderly suffer from poverty and high healthcare needs” (Ito, Jeon, Kwon, Noguchi and Tamiya 2017, 175). In Korea, many people that works for the government such as police officers are forced to continue working to earn and save up money despite being retired from the old job. This is due to earning minimum income [they do not get enough pension for their retirement plan] and at the same time, their healthcare price increasing (Ito, Jeon, Kwon, Noguchi and Tamiya 2017, 175). For elderly with disabilities are in worse situation than a normal elderly person because they “are not protected by both income and health systems for the policies of the disabled and those for the elderly are not mutually linked in many social security areas” (Ito, Jeon, Kwon, Noguchi and Tamiya 2017, 176). I believe that Korea is one of the countries to have a bad healthcare and pension system for people who are over 60 and especially for people with disabilities. For example, Canada has great health care system and pension plans for people that are old and for people with disabilities and because of that, they are living in stable life compared to people in Korea. Also Korea is one of the countries for strongly discriminating people with disabilities. “Microaggression refers to diverse discriminatory acts that are incessant, often gratuitous, and subtle offenses to certain categories of human beings because of their ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, or disability” (Park 2017, 919). In Korea they are people “who have been isolated and excluded in South Korea” (Park 2017, 919). Many news and articles are stating that Korea’s negative views on disability people are changing rapidly for the better (Park 2017, 918). However, I believe that it will take tremendous time for Korea to accept people with disabilities and elderly people with poverty like the other developed countries. In conclusion, Korea is a country where people with disabilities and elderly with poverty are not suitable to live in the cruel society, unless a proper action is taken for those people to survive the cruel society in Korea.
Questions:
- How are the pension systems and health care systems in Canada or any other countries compared to Korea? Are they better or worse?
- Why do you think the discrimination for disabilities in Korea are this serious? Why can’t the society accept them?
- How is the discrimination in North America? Do they treat people with disabilities equal to other healthy people?
Bibliography:
Park, Jung Youn. “Disability Discrimination in South Korea: Routine and Everyday Aggressions toward Disabled People.” Disability & Society 32, no. 6 (2017): 918-22. doi:10.1080/09687599.2017.1321223
Jeon, Boyoung, Haruko Noguchi, Soonman Kwon, Tomoko Ito, and Nanako Tamiya. “Disability, Poverty, and Role of the Basic Livelihood Security System on Health Services Utilization among the Elderly in South Korea.” Social Science & Medicine178 (February 14, 2017): 175-83. Accessed September 27, 2018. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.02.013.
Disability discrimination, around the globe, is a serious issue. From a North American perspective, disabled individuals are routinely discriminated against, though many North Americans may see their country as being very accommodating. While the US has a handful of assistance programs for the disabled and certain regulations regarding accessibility access, rights for the disabled are relatively non-existent. I think this comes from several issues – most prominently, the discrepancy between visible and non-visible disabilities. Individuals with visible disabilities are commonly discriminated against, and not treated as “healthy” individuals. The US government attempts to close this gap with assistance programs and accessibility rights – but the prejudice among most individuals still exists. This prejudice is also what drives shame in individuals with non-visible disabilities. Firstly, individuals with non-visible disabilities may feel hesitant to enclose their disability to others, for fear of being treated poorly, like those with visible disabilities. However, in the US, there is also a large amount of disregard to non-visible disabilities, as many don’t believe in non-visible disabilities as disabilities. Comparatively speaking, programs and assistance for individuals with visible disabilities are more common than those available to individuals with non-visible disabilities. In both of these categories, the assistance is not nearly sufficient. Prejudice against these groups is still extremely prominent. Though outwardly it may seem as though North America is more accommodating, North America is no better at accommodating disabled individuals than Asia. (Word Count: 235)
I personally think that disability discrimination is not only an ongoing issue in Korea but also in Canada. It seems like both of the countries have good health care systems; but can everyone get the same treatment? I don’t think so. I am honestly not familiar with the pension systems and health care systems in Korea and Canada but still can see the disability discrimination. I know that in Korea, we do pay a certain amount of money to ensure the health care. However, in the news, some people with the disabilities, mostly the elders, could not pay the payments since the price is going higher and higher and it is a serious issue. I feel sad toward this issue because in Korea, I personally think that it is actually hard to even ‘see’ the disabled people. However, in the news, they tell us that the percentages of the disabled people not able to pay the pension or the health care fees are getting higher because they are not able to work. I think that it seems worse in Korea but all around the world, I believe that they do all have difficulties facing the disability discrimination and disability pensions/ health care systems problems.
I think both Canada and Korea each have advantages and disadvantages about pension and health care system. Canadian government gives pension to seniors every month about $600. Also, Canadian citizens do not need to pay expensive insurance cost because Medical Service Plan (a.k.a. MSP), which is mandatory as a Canadian citizen, covers medical cares such as surgery. On the other hand, Korean pension system is not good because the process and criteria are very complex and hard to receive, and the surgery cost is very expensive if people do not have private insurance. However, for health care system, Canadians wait long to receive the surgery, and if they do not have a referral from family doctor or primary clinic, most secondary clinics do not accept them, while Korean health care systems do not require to have a referral from primary clinic, so they can directly go to specialized medical doctor. Due to going directly to a secondary clinic, they do not need to wait long to receive surgery. In addition, Korean government pays for some basic cares, so Korean citizens do not need to pay all cost as well, even though the surgery is expensive. Therefore, I cannot tell which one is better or worse, but personally, Canadian pension system is better, whereas Korean health care system is better
(word count: 219)
Korea is one of the countries with severe effect of social perceptions on individuals. From the past and on, the Korean politics were always good at raising opposing arguments on a decision. For the reason, people with disabilities in Korea have no significant benefits in comparison to people without disabilities since it is not considered as “equal”. The Korean government only support the minimum need of a conditioned citizen and no more. As more and more problems arise among the people, especially the older generations both without money and health care systems, instead of the government figuring out a new solution to help the need, it is the people with disabilities themselves who are trying to escape their disadvantaged position. The reason why the society cannot accept the ones with disabilities goes back to the problem with the culture, I believe. Korea is a country that deals a problem not as the way it is, but there are many cases where it was overturned to becoming a new source of different problem. Because there are people who counter uses all the benefits of the needed group, I think it is in the general norm that no significant benefits should be given to a group, even when they are in serious need. Therefore, I think it is on the people of Korea that number of group of people who are desperate in need are not supported.
(word count: 235)
I think the discrimination for disabled people stems from the standard and quality of living of Korean citizens. It is not that people reject, hate, or dislike people with disabilities, but rather how mid to low income earners are working tirelessly, paying their taxes but realizing that their taxes are not being spent on them, but to those who are not working. Of course, it is not the fault of the disable people that they are different and sometimes unable to work, but rather, the expression of frustration and difficulty of living and surviving by regular citizens that is understood by others as discrimination for the disabled. I think most people would be able to sympathize with the difficulties of disabled people but the problem that I think which causes these discrimination is the fact that the working civilians, experiencing hardships day by day, are not getting more benefits. Everyone knows that disable people need to be treated the same and deserve the help they get, but at the same time, there are millions of working citizens that also need all the help they can get and equalizing both sides are an extremely difficult task that the government has to overcome.
201
In my opinion, Hong Kong’s pension systems are quite similar to Korea. The retirement plans do not offer enough to retirees, and hence, many retirees continue to work part time or full time to supplement his or her income. This trend can be explained by the low contribution rate of the Mandatory Provident Fund and also because of the lack of other social security by the government. Although there are still many issues that the government have yet to solve regarding the welfare system in Hong Kong, the recent establishment of the public annuity scheme, which the elderly were given a fixed monthly income, has nevertheless marked a significant development in our retirement protection system.
Relating to the topic of microaggressions mentioned above, I think the main reason why it is still a challenge for society to accept people with disabilities can be caused by a lack of understanding of the characteristics of disability or sensitivity to the damage caused by conflicts of interests. Since Korea is a collectivistic society, they are convinced that everyone should contribute an equal amount to Korean society’s development. The public might still hold the belief that people with disabilities are not contributing as much as the rest while consuming the same amount or more resources from society and hence causing discrimination for them.
(219 words)
How is the discrimination in North America? Do they treat people with disabilities equal to other healthy people?
I feel that the discrimination in North America for disabilities is less common as they are not as limited in general due to the increase in amenities and services allowing the differences between disabled and non disabled people to be less magnified. However I do feel that there is sometimes displeasure against disabled people for the amount of amenities and funds that go towards them rather than the larger population
Cormac Chui
Squad 38
Hey all,
I think Julian’s essay touches on a good point about entitlement (and to a degree, right to life) because, as Jack brought up, if you’re not working and making tax dollars, what’s the point of spending more money to accommodate you? I think it’s a very difficult perspective to see in a mobile, forward-facing society. And with the comparisons of the social security systems, it’s interesting to see how those reflect values and changes to them as well.