A few of the hundreds of policemen surrounding the protest.
On Thursday night, I was walking around the busiest part of Seoul with a couple of my small group friends. We walked up to an intersection (the Korean version of Wall Street) beside the subway. Just before we reached the subway, we heard lots of shouting on loud speakers and saw a big crowd. We crossed the street to see what what going on. It turns out a few hundred university students were protesting. The president had promised to lower tuition rates, but suprise, surprise, had not. The students gathered in the busiest intersection in Seoul and sat. Of course this made already crazy traffic, even crazier. It wasn't the students that made up most of the crowd though! It was policemen! There were hundreds of policemen in their flourecent green vests surrounding the students. It was a very strange and a little scary sight to see hundreds of policemen all in one place! They looked a little frantic. As we stood there and watched for about 15 minutes, the police threatened that they would arrest those who didn't move from the intersection. As we stood, many students busted out of the crowd, surrendering their agenda to the police's will. Each student in the protest was wearing a mask (which my dad said was to conceal their identity). Others stayed and were sprayed by fire engine hoses in order to be made to move. When they did not, they were arrested. Very odd, and a little exciting to see!
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