01.05.2017

KBS News – video at link

By Gim Gyeae

While assaults on aircraft crew have been an issue for some time now, there has now been an incident where a passenger assaulted a crew member on the KTX high speed train as it was running. The reason: the passenger didn’t like the way the crew member checked his ticket.

Today at 06:10, inside a KTX leaving Busan bound for Seoul, a man suddenly shakes his fist and strikes his opponent. He even kicked [the victim] once he’d fallen over. The victim is a KTX crew member. The passenger had bought an economy class ticket but was travelling in a first-class carriage, and the incident occurred when the staff member asked him to present his ticket. A colleague of the assaulted crew member said: “We have a machine which checks ticket. The man’s seat should have been empty – as soon as my colleague asked to check his ticket he became violent.” Korail immediately informed its incident room about the case, and 20 minutes later when the train came to the next stop in Ulsan special law enforcement police arrested a 37-year-old man, a Mr Jo. Mr Jo stated that he had been enraged by the crew member’s request to confirm his ticket. He will be indicted on suspicion of violating the railway safety law. The 38-year-old victim Mr Nam has been taken to Seoul Station and treated at the hospital emergency room.

Analysis: Social interactions in Korea are governed by a very complex set of linguistic and cultural expectations – it’s possible this rather unpleasant customer was triggered by what he thought of as overly blunt language from the KTX employee. Koreans expect deference from staff when they’re paying customers and it’s common to witness quite rude treatment of employees. However, public random violence is rare enough for this type of incident to make national headlines. This incident comes in the context of recent high-profile incidents in Korea and elsewhere of violent behaviour by staff and passengers on airlines.