That set off weeks of protests by the blind. Some blind masseurs leaped from buildings and jumped on to subway tracks. Two blind people died. The police fished blind activists from the Han River in Seoul after they jumped from a bridge to highlight their cause. The protests continued until the National Assembly passed legislation enshrining the massage monopoly into law.
Then the sighted staged their own protests in response to the new law. One activist killed himself by jumping from the same Han River bridge. More than 7,300 sighted masseurs have joined in the current lawsuit, which asks the Constitutional Court to strike down the 2006 law.
Earlier this month, blind protesters again jumped from the Han River bridge, this time to protest a government proposal to license skin-care specialists to also give massages. The protesters demanded that the skin-care specialists be permitted only to massage heads and hands, leaving the rest of the body to the blind.
[ For South Korea’s Blind, a Livelihood Is Challenged, in the New York Times ]
Only the blind can be registered masseurs in South Korea. It sounds like a heartbreaking problem on both sides—people who want to be masseurs cannot, but the blind are at least ensured jobs in a nation where there is still a certain among of stigma attached to their disability.
