Nanny staters, kindly lighten up

By Andrew Salmon

Entering South Korea via Incheon International Airport is a pleasant experience.

You exit your aircraft and are conveyed, via a moving walkway, along airy corridors emblazoned with posters showcasing tourist sites and historic artifacts. Gentle muzak soothes your ears, gentle air conditioning cools your skin, and should you require them, sparkling clean lavatorial facilities await your deposits.

So far, so good: the hardware is formidable. The software kicks in when you reach Immigration.

Naturally, the "Foreigners" passport line is longer than the "Koreans" line, but so what? In most countries, natives enjoy quicker entry. Ah well. Eventually, you reach the desk. A smiling official checks your details ― then asks you to place your index fingers on a machine.

Eh? What‘s going on?

Yes. You, a foreign tourist here to experience exciting Korea or a businessman here to undertake commerce with local partners, are being fingerprinted ― presumably so that you can be conveniently identified should you decide to carry out a robbery or perhaps commit a murder during your stay.

Granted, Korea is not the only country to fingerprint visitors: The U.S. also has this unpleasant practice. But at no other destination in my recent travels ― Finland, France, Malaysia, Norway, the U.K. ― have I or my (Korean) family suffered this indignity.

Still, while incoming foreigners may frown at the minor humiliation at Immigration, they don't suffer the indignities natives face a few minutes later at Customs.

When passing through the "Nothing to Declare" channel in most nations' customs barriers, travelers who do not look suspicious are waved through. Not so this summer at Incheon. Flying in from London, everybody on my flight was having their baggage checked by x-ray and hand search.

Was a terrorist outrage imminent? Was an international drug deal anticipated? Apparently not, judging by the unpleasant scenes I witnessed.

One family was arguing with customs officials, stating that some jewelry they had bought was only worth $70.

More troublingly, a 60-something Korean housewife, her luggage thrown open and whose fraught expression and hand wringing would have been appropriate for someone caught sacrificing babies at Black Mass, was being taken aside for questioning. And what baggage item had breached national security protocols and/or social sensibilities?

A designer handbag.

Come, now. Is this something the government should concern itself with?

The idea that Korean citizens are not free to spend their own ― yes, their own, not the state's ― cash on luxury products and golf gear abroad raises questions.

Has the "It is indecent to fritter away earnings on foreign frivolities!" tendency been reincarnated from the early 1990s? If so, fine, but then let us not consider Korea a democracy ― which, as those persons promoting these policies need to be reminded, is predicated upon the rights and freedoms of the individual.

Is there a fear that national wealth is being drained by big-spending vacationers, thereby exposing Korea to another 1997-style foreign exchange catastrophe? If so, get real. Last time I looked, South Korea, the world's fifteenth largest economy, possessed the world's seventh highest foreign currency reserves.

Or is it about tax? After all, if Kim buys a Gucci handbag in Paris, tax authorities in Seoul don't get their take of her loot. If so, then perhaps national trading bodies should remind the taxman that Korea benefits massively from global capitalism ― a system reliant upon international consumption.

These nanny state practices do not end at Incheon.

Upon reaching their hotel, visitors may be surprised to find that Korea's Internet ― touted by national promoters as one of the world's finest ― is dotted with blocked sites. Most of these are pornographic (er…or so I am told); others are North Korea-related.

Does the government fear that Korea will turn into a nation of frantic self-abusers if its citizenry are exposed to online slap ‘n tickle?

Or that, upon reading North Korea's ridiculous and outdated propaganda, they will turn revolutionary, and reject their own society ― one of the most successful examples of capitalist, democratic growth in modern times?

The impression one gains from the above ― and there are many more examples ― is that Seoul does not trust either visitors or citizens. Are Korea's powers-that-be so used to control that they are simply uncomfortable with the concept of a free and responsible society?

Dear South Korean government:

Enough, please, of this nanny state nonsense. Perhaps it was appropriate in the 1960s and 70s, when Korea was poor, when democracy was suppressed, and when the market was closed. But Korea is not a baby anymore; it is a grown-up, successful society.

You have more important tasks before you than molly-coddling, nanny stating and social meddling. Kindly lighten up!

Andrew Salmon is a Seoul-based reporter and author. Reach him at andrewcsalmon@yahoo.co.uk.