The recent uproar in the Western media over the discovery of capsules containing the dried remains of aborted foetuses by South Korean customs is still attracting considerable attention from news outlets such as the Daily Mail and the BBC but how was this unsettling news received in Korea?
When the story first broke several weeks ago, it was not covered here for one simple reason: koreaBANG talks about whatever Korean netizens are talking about, and netizens weren’t talking — at least not about this. Still, the Korean media has continued, periodically, to produce further updates and analysis on the horrific reality of the production of the capsules in China, how they were smuggled into South Korea to be discovered by customs, as well as how the matter should be handled, with the most recent cluster of articles appearing just yesterday.
According to major South Korean news outlets, the capsules in question were produced in China, where traffickers were allegedly purchasing aborted foetuses from clinics or directly from women, storing them at home in small refrigerators, then returning to another hospital where the remains of the foetuses were microwave dried and ground into a fine powder to make the capsules. The gruesome contents of the pills were revealed when DNA tests demonstrated that up to 97.3% of the contents were from human remains, and that in some cases these were from three separate foetuses. Furthermore, earlier reports in mainstream papers described how South Korean customs officers had sized over 17,000 capsules between August 2011 and March 2012.
It is important to bear in mind that this is not the first scandal of its kind in East Asia, where the trade for illegal, supposedly traditional panaceas is well-established, and regularly makes the news. According to a Nate News article which appeared on April 29, the same capsules had been discovered in China last summer, at which time Korean investigations revealed that the capsules were not available in South Korea. Though the Chinese government was keen to clamp down on the trade of these “supplements”, production continued and they eventually found their way into the South Korean black market. The media soon reported that this was made possible by members of the Joseonjok community, Chinese of Korean descent who for the most part live in North-East China and the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, and some netizens have also picked up on this. Rather than lamenting the sad reality of a trade that involves not only the cannibalisation of aborted foetuses, but equally the trafficking of products from many endangered species as well as dangerous additives, some have responded in a nationalist vein to the news, highlighting racial tensions that would make most people extremely uncomfortable. And not for the first time.
Since the story is still a current issue in South Korea, both as a consequence of the shocking facts involved in the case and to a lesser extent the influence of the foreign media interest in the topic, below are a selection of comments to show how netizens have reacted to the news over time.
However, despite sensationalist foreign media coverage, it seems that many netizens weren’t stirred to comment on the discovery of the illegal pills at all.
From Nate:
이현규:
Just the thought of eating a fetus in the first place shows we have failed as humans, does it not?
김성민:
And still they don’t suspect the Joseonjok, can we just tolerate being called the same humans as them – is only their nationality is different?
김시열:
In the Suwon murder case after the murder itself there is the fact that Joseon-jok Yoo Wen Choon [Oh Won Choon] said that he made 280 pieces out of the flesh, divided it up and put it into bags. The content of this article is that Choson-minjok like human flesh…Honestly, even if I thought that wasn’t the case, it seems like there is so much of a connection between these things that it would be impossible to think otherwise. Anyhow, the clear truth of the matter is that Joseon-jok and the Chinese are tribes that enjoy eating human flesh. In the future, after some murder, looks like they’ll have to investigate these kinds of links in relation to the disposal of the victim’s body
오수민:
It’s just the same as the Oh Won Choon human flesh smuggling…
권상덕:
You chinky cunts, you really are the cancer of the world…just like those bastards who bought and ate the pills…fucking hell.
김민선:
This program is pretty amazing. I know how there are such things as capsules made out of human flesh, but I couldn’t understand the details in reality, so as I was watching it, I became able to make a proper judgement about it.
김동철:
Wah, knowing about human-flesh things..you mean they bought them and ate them? These bastards are human scum..
이영주:
What the hell are the human right’s organisations doing? The Chinese are making it circulate.
최광우:
Joseonjok, Chinese people, for god’s sake do something to control them! Hell, this makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes if I’m sitting behind a chink, this unique fucking stench arises..ㅡㅡ Just wandering around the streets, if I see a Chinese kid, for some reason I just feel disgusted ㅡㅡ Now haven’t a lot of excuses appeared? Even if it wasn’t just illegal supplements, they’d give more than half.
박수열:
But what could China do? There were a lot of people wanting those things in Korea, so they just started to make some more, didn’t they?
이영지:
What the hell is this again that people heard it is that the Joseonjok, and the people from our country who were selling the pills?
김현옥:
Those things were also on TV ages ago, they were stacking foetuses in their home kimchi fridge, and they manufactured them saying the capsules were made from sea otter, but no matter how good they might be for you, the people who buy and eat those things are really frightening, disgusting….It’s not like they’re Kumiho…..And the thing that was even more surprising is that the place where they were hiding them was not some small hospital, but a huge hospital in China where those things were being made……
백승현:
Oh Won Choon, that bastard was like that too. These fucking bastards..
어후
Hmph. It’s nothing to do with these things not being good for your body; if people eat such things, that in itself is unacceptable, right? Would you eat something that you shouldn’t eat even if you had nothing to eat and were starving simply because it was “health food”?
김현:
If you’re in pain, you go to the hospital and if you want to be healthy, do some exercise! Don’t think about eating someone from the same species as you!
김경미:
…..Are they people or monsters?
이은비:
If you eat the same species…your descendants are gonna have some problems..You shouldn’t eat them ㅡㅡ So ..even carnivorous animals, like lions and tigers..even they don’t eat each other..How could a learned human be even stupider than a beast?
류재호:
Those Chinese bastards don’t only do that, but they also have this thing called “baby soup” here they give money to poor families who are in trouble for aborted babies, buy them, boil them and eat them. Look for it on Naver. Chinese twats aren’t humans. I guess the Joseon-jok are also Chinese. Oh Won Choon, that fucker too, was clearly a supplier of human flesh. In China they still practice cannibalism. That putrid race just come into Korea without a visa and they can’t even get their finger prints, that’s Roh Moo-hyun and Kang Kum-sil. Park Chung-hee said that Koreans who had crossed into China weren’t allowed to set foot in Korea, made a policy of oppressing overseas Chinese, so throughout the whole world, the overseas Chinese made a country where they didn’t try hard at anything. That sicko Roh Moo-huyn fucking ended up making a heaven for those wasters.
김의성:
Oh Won Choon was also trafficking human flesh, wasn’t he? -_- Ah, fuck, dirty Joseon-jok chinks, purge the lot of ’em
박근형:
People who’d eat that, people who’d look for that, people who’d sell that, people who make that, you can all die from the super bacteria inside. ㅡㅡ stupid obsession for stamina..
김지민:
The people who buy and eat them are Koreans, and inside those capsules, there are germs and bacteria that come out of a rotting corpse, all wriggling around.. What’s even more dangerous, is that tens of thousnds of people could get infected and die from the bacteria from a single carrier..But now Korean ajumma [aunts] and ajosshi [uncles], if they say something is good for your vitality and your body, they’ll take it no matter what..Seriously, I hate it…….
이다혜:
BSE is a disease that appeared because cows were eating food that contained flesh from their own species, so if humans are eating humans, won’t that cause some strange disease?
방재권:
Wouldn’t it be good if those who ate those pills died?
From Nate:
김민호
Those Chinese bastards selling them, and the fucking Koreans buying and taking them, it’s deeply embarrassing. Bringing shame on the nation.
정부혁:
This is just the consequence of the match made in heaven of those chinks who’ll do anything when it comes to money and those Koreans who’ll eat anything if you tell them it’s good for them.
강은규:
What kind of person inside Korea would purchase these to take? I’m definitely waiting for them to make the names of these people clear. I’m really curious. What kind of human scumbag must they be…
김치훈:
Is our country an advanced one?
최진혁:
Even the fact that someone would make these human flesh capsules and sell them is disgraceful….Even those things that are smuggled in, that’s a problem….But still, why would you go out and buy capsules made from dead bodies without even knowing if it was a dead human….What if they’re made from corpses that have died infected with AIDS or communicable diseases…But then placenta injections are also made using human placentas, aren’t they???
송성규:
The Chinese have been eating human flesh since the old days, it’s barbaric. Before all this nonsense, try looking once at the state of Korea. Is this something that humans do?
최석경:
Don’t even write the word Joseon-jok. Just make it “Chinese” instead. This is something that the Geju Chinese and the Chinese eat in Korea, it’s not what Koreans eat.
전수연:
Isn’t this something that Koreans ate without knowing? Isn’t this something that they ate because they thought it was a medicine that was simply good for their bodies, without knowing that it was from a dead foetus? Common sense tells you that if it’s a dead foetus, who would want to eat it? I believe that Koreans have reached this level ..;; It would be good if even the consumers, the people who ate them knowingly, faced a punishment.
김시열:
Is there any proof that the people buying this stuff were even Koreans? Haven’t you heard the story that there are even meetings in Korea between Joseon-jok and Chinese where they eat human flesh? While we can’t know for sure, have some shame, for goodness’ sake….Even the fact that they’re spreading rumours that’our country’ is eating them…it’s the same as spreading a false reality, so they should be careful.
이정호:
When I saw the article, I knew that it was something that the Joson-jok were eating, but it looks like there are even some bastards amongst Koreans who are buying them and taking them…..Really, I want them to arrest the people who’ve bought them to take and reveal their names…..
윤승희:
We don’t even know what kind of side effects they will cause, but it looks like people will thoughtlessly eat things if you say it’s good for them ….;;;;*sigh* They’re going against nature. Something big will happen….
이형섭:
This too is all MB’s fault.
황현준:
I always say those fucking chinks just go beyond my imagination but aren’t those Koreans who buy the pills the crazy ones?
이인수:
Wow, they’re making all kinds of things and eating them…
이재호:
No, that’s frightening and damaging for your body. Why would you eat that? ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke Rather than the results of actual research they’d rather believe the words of someone next to them ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke You want to eat that shit? Filthy bastards.
배상훈:
Joseon-joks come into the country don’t they~but they are NOT Korean~
이정은:
So it was made in China, but is Korea the only country it was exported to?? Is it not just that Korea is the first country to uncover this?
이기영:
They wanna eat a pill that is made of ground-up baby infants that died of causes we don’t even know of? They want to cure a disease, but all they will do is catch one~~~
