How good is Pride

Arrived in Seoul early Saturday evening and even for Seoul I thought seeing 15 police buses with red flashing lights was a bit much. Not that I mean the place is dangerous, not at all; on all indices South Korea has a low crime rate for an industrialised country and a lot less murders than Australia.

Cathy, Tom and Joanne arrive in Seoul

The student protest movement has been an important political force in Korea and dates back to 1919 where students came out in force in opposition to Japanese rule. South Korean politics has teetered between authoritarian rule and democracy and this came to a flash point in May 1980 when government troops fired upon and killed university students protesting martial law. Throughout the 80s protesting and demonstrations continued and the student movement and the ‘great worker struggle’, which opened up the path for an independent trade union movement, played a pivotal role in the democratisation of South Korea. So any massing of people, and police in response, in Seoul or other major cities can be a source of concern. So I was wary. Ever the pessimist.

But rest assured - Saturday’s event was Korea’s 20th annual Gay Pride March. A whopping 70,000 people hit the streets to join the march, which makes we wonder at the stats I read that 58% of the population do not support same sex marriage. Still it is a conservative country in many ways, and the Christian groups were also out in force running their own counter protest.

We went out to dinner later that evening, yes I admit we had Korean Fried chicken and beer in our first night, got to live like a local, and noticed our restaurant was filled with the bright young Korean crowd decked in their rainbow colours.