Korea Is Generally Considered Safe But For Single Women, There Is Still Inherent Fear

You’ve heard various stories of valiant K-Pop idols helping their fans out of danger. For example, N.Flying‘s Seunghyub once went viral for saving a fan from a drunk man. According to the fan, she was being followed by a drunk man on the way home at night, and she commented as such on the livestream. Seunghyub’s quick reflexes sprung into action, and he instructed her to put the live stream on loud volume and pretend she was having a phone conversation with him.

nflying's seunghyub the best guy in the world he was doing ig live and an nfia said theres a drunk man following her behind so seunghyub went "put this ig live on speaker mode lets pretend we are talking" and he really acted like he was talking to her #NFlying #엔플라잉 pic.twitter.com/rEYndqdRy2

— 쿱랑 yinghui: 승철이 자체가 눈부셔 (@svtcheols) May 28, 2019

He pretended that he would wait for her in front of the convenience store through the live call and thankfully, the fan got home safely.

You might also have heard of fans using their idols’ names to receive parcels from online shopping. They often later find a way to thank the idol for the use of their name. While this may sound creepy to you, it’s actually a common way of self-protection that many females in South Korea are forced to use. As parcels are often left outside the door if the owner is not home, passersby can easily find out the name and personal details of the home owner. Especially for girls living alone, it is dangerous if passersby find out that a girl is living alone in that apartment. Furthermore, there are also news of delivery men threatening female customers alone in their homes. Hence, many young females living by themselves change the receiver name on their addresses to a male name to avoid detection.

MONSTA X‘s Kihyun once sweetly gave permission to his fans to use his name.

A fan had sent in a radio message claiming that she had just started living alone as she entered university. She set up her address name as Yoo Kihyun out of concern for her safety and he readily gave her permission.

If you ever thought these situations were exaggerations, a tale from a YouTuber will prove you wrong. Anastravel shared her story of how she used to stay in a one room apartment building near a university. The building’s neighborhood was generally considered safe, being close to a university and she even had a children’s playground in front of the building.

The children in the neighborhood somehow found the password to the main lobby of the building and often went up the building to play in the corridors. She did not think much of it until one day, someone had run up and down the corridors, pressing the bell at every door. There was only four apartments on her floor then and she assumed it was a child playing a prank. The intercom kept buzzing due to the pressing of the bell and she got so annoyed that she responded to ask who it was. Despite her repeated asking, there was no response.

She decided to take the intercom phone off its hook so it would stop making noise. However, by doing this, she could hear clearly what was going on outside her door. She had no peephole neither did the intercom have a CCTV so this was her best bet. When she heard someone try to press her digital lock passcode, she knew instinctively that it could not be a child.

The intruder was confident in his attempts at unlocking her door, so she knew that he probably had an inkling to her combination. Thankfully, she had put the manual latch across the door that day and she called the police quickly.

When the police arrived, they told her they received a report from her neighbor as well, another female who was living alone. The neighbor was scared to bits as her apartment not only did not have a manual latch, but also did not have a digital door lock. It was literally a handle with a keyhole. The neighbor had been holding the door handle in place by sheer strength to prevent the intruder from entering after he had tried to pick the lock.

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Anastravel realized belatedly through news reports that there had been cases of men placing a CCTV camera in corridors to spy on the passwords to various apartments where females were living in. She guessed that was how the attempted intruder was so sure as to what her password was. The purpose of pressing all the intercom bells was also to verify that it was a female living in the apartment from their voices.

Thankfully, the intruder ran away after the police came and everyone was safe. She moved out soon after. Even in a country as safe as Korea, precautions are necessary for your own safety. Check out the full video below.