Insecticide Craziness
(Update November 4: It’s not related to the Korean environment, but when I wrote this post I randomly found the above picture on the internet, thinking it would be a funny introduction to the topic of insecticide overuse here, but I didn’t know any details about the picture itself. But after someone on this Spanish historical site asked for help finding out where it came from, I got over 400(!) people checking this post out, 200 of them even after someone said that I provided no information with it. It is indeed a curious picture, so you might be interested in seeing how that search for its origins turned out at “Bumper Crop Of Nightmares Material“)
A couple of evenings ago I was lying in the living room, relaxing after work and enjoying the breeze that blows through our apartment. All of sudden I heard a strange but oddly familiar droning noise in the distance, but when I realised what it was I instinctively suddenly sat bolt upright, gashing my head on the corner of my desk in the process.
I say instinctively, because back when I lived on the ground floor in Jinju that droning noise was like an air-raid siren, for it meant I had maybe 10 seconds to quickly close all the windows and run outside and grab all my laundry, for then a guy on a motorcycle would blow insecticide in my face.
I’m not the first expat to mention these trucks or guys on bikes and I won’t be the last, so I won’t say much about them, but if you’ve never been here then you just won’t understand how so pre-Silent Spring and 1950s the attitudes to insecticide and chemicals in general are here. This time of the year, suburbs of Busan look like parts of Beirut, with clouds of smoke not indicating gunfire or burning buildings but from literal gas attacks. I have to change my route home to avoid them.
So determined was I to get a video of this to show non-expats that I got the camera out and started filming it (safe on the 14th floor), not noticing the gash on my head until my wife mentioned I was getting blood on the camera.
The video wasn’t good from the 14th floor anyway, but fortunately while loading it to youtube I found this much better one (suprised there weren’t more).
One can only wonder what is going through the minds of some of the kids that chase these trucks…
After 7 years of joking about all the DDT etc. that must be in the insecticide, I don’t like to think of my daughter Alice playing outside and suddenly getting a facefull of it, and after all my posts on other issues are finished I’d like to start investigating what’s really in it. Same goes for the water. While I can’t believe that new generations of expats think it’s safe to drink, how bad is it really?
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The water in Seoul IS actually safe to drink in many if not most places, with the main concern being the age of pipes in particular buildings. I don’t know as much about Busan. While I didn’t believe it initially either, I’ve talked with several Korean environmental activists (Korean Federation for Environmental Movement and EcoHorizon) about the water and they’ve told me it’s much much better than when I first started volunteering for them in 1997. On the other hand, a recent study carried out by KFEM found a lot of the water filter systems in libraries, clinics, etc. to have microorganisms (probably not changed often enough) while bottled water was also contaminated. I’ll look into the pesticide issue for you now that I’m back in Seoul for a few months. Congrats on the great blog! I’m new to all of this but will be checking back often.
chad
Thanks for the compliment, and I’ve heard the same about the problems with the tapwater being more to do with the age of the pipes in a building rather than the quality of the water that is being supplied to the building itself.
I may have given the wrong impression about what I think of tapwater: I’m actually a big fan of water fluoridation and would still choose tapwater over bottled water back home. Actually my family drinks it now because my wife just bought a rather expensive filter system. As I type this I’ve just asked her if Korean tapwater is fluoridated, and she says that it isn’t and is controversial here. Could you confirm this?
Before that, a whole week ago, we had a water cooler at home and ordererd two or three bottles for it every week. In hindsight, given the KFDA’s lack of enforcement of standards, then I’m suprised that I just took it on faith that this bottled water was safer than the tapwater, and I confess that I didn’t even know where it came from. But the older and more cyncial I get, and especially now that I have a daughter, I’m increasingly less willing to take it on faith alone that food and water in Korea is of an acceptable quality, and so make as much of the former as possible.
Thanks for looking at the pesticide issue. Like I said, I keep meaning to do so myself, but still haven’t got around to it, and in the meantime I’ve learned recently that I shouldn’t criticise things too much if I’ve never really studied them myself and don’t really know all that much about them!