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| Fair society for Korean vampires? |
Many hospitals have struggled with low blood stocks in recent months as Koreans have been too busy with their Galaxy S2s and Galaxy Notes to donate, but foreigners who can speak fluent Korean, whose skin isn't too dark, and who come from countries not designated as a 'mad cow disease risk area' - which includes the whole of Europe - are inconveniently allowed to donate if no other excuses can be found, and have continued to do so.
It has been considered prudent to keep some foreign blood in hospitals after the so-called 'waegug-minjok' affair two years ago, when a foreigner who'd had a major blood transfusion in Korea from normal blood stocks following an accident claimed to be a pure-blooded Korean in the last ever episode of the television show "I Have a Secret". Foreign blood is otherwise usually quietly thrown down the drain or sold for use in the Korean movie business.
With stocks of Korean blood low, the hospital in question instead offered the vampire as much foreign blood as he wanted, but he refused saying he still had his standards, and died shortly afterward.
Korean vampires are said to be outraged by the unnecessary death of a long-lived friend and colleague who they claim was old enough to remember the Korean founding of Dokdo when it was an uninhabited island and definitely not Japanese. However, generally Korea is seen as a progressive society for vampires; many shops remain open late into the night for their benefit, and the employment of vampires means it's never too difficult to get a taxi at 2am in the morning. One of Korea's biggest entertainment agencies even launched a 'vampire boy band', who can keep their youthful looks indefinitely as long as they have a ready supply of blood, which given the devotion of their female fans should not be a problem.
President Lee Myung-bak has also sought to create a fair society for vampires, by increasing the number of migrant workers in Korea from Asian countries. Such workers tend not to be missed when they disappear after the life is drained out of them, making them potentially ideal for the local vampire population.
But the populist initiative potentially demonstrated how far Korean society still has to go to understand its vampire population – after it was launched the Korean vampires said they didn't like to eat foreign food. "These days younger vampires will eat American fast food, but most of us are too old to change our ways" explained a spokesvampire. But even younger vampires are said to struggle with their dietary preferences – most Americans in Korea are clinically overweight and are therefore not that fast.
After a week the hospital has still to release the dead vampire's name, fueling rumors that he may have run a large Korean corporation. The left-wing Hankyoreh newspaper maintains that all Korea's corporations – known as 'chaebol' – are run by blood-sucking vampires, and that the group even has closet members in the upper echelons of government.
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