An army of informers are paid to catch their neighbours breaking the rules, writes JOHN GLIONNAin Seoul
WITH HIS dapper red scarf and orange-tinted hair, Kim Rae-in is a card-carrying member of the “paparazzi” posse, cruising Seoul on his beat-up motorcycle on the lookout for the next “gotcha!” moment.
He’s not stalking starlets or pop singers, however. He’s after a different sort of money-making snapshot: the slouching salary man lighting up in a no-smoking area, the homeowner illegally dumping trash, the corner merchant selling out-of-date candy to youngsters.
Kim (34), a former gas station attendant, isn’t choosy. Even small crime pays big time – more than $3,000 (€2,380) in January alone. “It’s good money,” he says. “I’ll never go back to pumping gas. I feel free now.” Kim is among a new breed of candid-camera bugs across South Korea – referred to as “paparazzi”, although their subjects are not the rich and famous but low-grade lawbreakers whose actions caught on film are peddled as evidence to government officials.
In recent years, officials here have enacted more than 60 civilian “reporting” programmes that offer rewards ranging from as little as 50,000 won (€27.20) for the smallest infractions to 2 billion won for reporting a large-scale corruption case involving government officials. (This one has yet to be paid out.) The “paparazzi” trend has even inspired its own lexicon.
There are “seon-parazzi” who specialise in pursuing election-law violators; “ssu-parazzi” who target illegal acts of dumping garbage, and “seong-parazzi” who target prostitution, which is illegal in South Korea.
Amid the nation’s worsening economic crisis, officials say there are fewer government investigators to maintain public order. So they are relying increasingly on a bounty-hunter style of justice.
Many of these paparazzi are out-of-work salary men, bored homemakers and students who consider themselves deputised agents of the South Korean government. To meet a growing demand, scores of paparazzi schools have sprung up, charging students $250 for three-day courses on how to edit film, tail suspected wrongdoers and operate button-sized cameras.
Although accurate numbers are hard to come by, schools estimate that 500 of these paparazzi are now working in South Korea.
It is a country where many celebrities can still walk the streets unhindered, but that may not be so for long – one paparazzi academy is offering a course in stalking well-known people.
Few officials question the ethics of arming citizens against citizens with zoom video and long-range lenses. “They don’t violate any laws, so there’s no reason to restrict them,” says a National Tax Service official, who declines to be named. “They don’t infringe on others’ private lives, do they?”
Yet many believe these furtive photographers are doing just that. Some paparazzi students say they hate ratting on their neighbours, but the money is too good to resist. “It’s shameful work – I’m really not proud of it,” says one student.
Experts say South Koreans would rather look the other way when it comes to petty infractions. “In Korean culture, we don’t want our neighbours spying on us,” says Park Heung-sik, public policy professor at Seoul’s Chung-Ang University. “In elementary school, when a classmate reports on another’s bad behaviour, there’s bad blood. A student might get beat up. It’s the same with adults.” The paparazzi school administrators remain unapologetic. “The paparazzi critics are usually the ones who are breaking the law,” says Moon Sung-ok, head of Mismiz Report Compensation School in Seoul. “The clean ones, the innocent citizens – they have no problems with us.”
Shin Gi-woong (38) once owned a sushi bar; now he runs Posang Club paparazzi school, with its logo featuring gun cross hairs in the “o” of Posang.
He got involved in the trade after a car crash in 2002 involving another driver who he says made an illegal U-turn. That gave him the idea to document such incidents. For years he was a “car-parazzi”, cruising for traffic violations, until the government outlawed the practice. Then he started tracking store owners selling outdated sweets to children. He also busted jewellers and chemists who did not give out receipts, as required by law.
In 2004 he started the Posang Club. He teaches students about camera techniques and cameras hidden in the buttons of shirts and blouses. He says he instructs them that upholding the law is the important thing. “Money doesn’t come first,” he claims.
But for Kim Rae-in, it’s all about the cash. Kim focuses on merchants who don’t offer receipts. He often uses a small video camera hidden inside a bag he keeps under his arm.
He chooses his cases by instinct, doing internet research on store sales volumes before hopping on his motorcycle each day. He sends a DVD of his evidence to the relevant government agency and collects his cash in a few days.
He plays by the rules, he says, and so should everyone else.
"People don't abide by the law any more because they know there aren't enough investigators," he says. "That's why paparazzi emerged. These crooks get what they deserve." Kim demonstrates his camera inside a small convenience store. Later, the clerk said she wouldn't be angry at Kim if he busted her for not handing out a receipt. But it wouldn't necessarily end her life of small crime."It would teach me a lesson," Jang Eun-hye says. "Then I'd know I'd have to be more careful next time." – ( LA Times- Washington Postservice)