While walking through Samsung Plaza yesterday in Seohyeon, my friend and I were bothered by some theology students.
Last year I mentioned that there is a large base of evangelical christians here in Korea and that they arguably waste their English skills harassing foreigners.
While I am not promoting censorship or some kind retaliatory action against this activity, it is nothing short of annoying salesmanship — or as business guru Seth Godin calls it: interruption marketing. And the only reason it is tolerated is because it is shrouded behind a multi-billion person identity group.
For example, my British friend and I were just about the only foreigners in the modern, extremely busy courtyard and were walking to an empty table when two well-groomed Korean men with perfect English interrupted our day to sell us religion.
Here is the dialogue:
Korean man: “Hi, I am a theology student that needs help filling out a survey, could you assist me with this?”
My friend: “Not really, no.”
Korean man: “Are you a Christian?”
My friend: “No.”
Korean man: “So you don’t read the bible?”
My friend: “No.”
Korean man: “Don’t you know the bible is the word of god?”
My friend: “God does not exist.”
Korean man: “Don’t you believe human life is fragile? You could be walking across the street and get killed by a car.”
My friend: “Sure, that is a danger. But you don’t have the solution to that.”
Korean man: “What about asteroids, comets and meteorites? They can kill you at any instant. Doesn’t that worry you?”
My friend: “Not really.”
Korean man: “Don’t you know you are living in sin?”
My friend: “Good-bye.”
At that point my friend and I walked into a convenience store and bought a couple of drinks, sat down at the table and laughed about the whole incident.
I am seriously not making up the part about the seminary student asking us about cosmological phenomenon blowing us up.
This 45-second sales pitch can be summarized along the following: he was trying to reach out to real, seemingly uncontrollable fears in order to sell us phony insurance. And then guilt us for not wanting to join his club.
His insurance method is hardly new or novel. Furthermore, it is no different than the sales pitch used by countless theologians representing hundreds of religions and belief systems.
Seriously, it was no different than someone trying to peddle magnetic rocks or dowsing rods. And a question for the self-righteous members of the evangelical movement: why is this presentation and marketing strategy laudable and someone doing the same thing under a different name (e.g., Islam) wrong?
Would you not be annoyed if a group of Muslims or Pastafarians interrupted your day, without your personal permission, to tell you why you are evil and risk dying at any time? If yes, than I implore you not to financially support anyone that uses this technique to sell their wares (e.g., most missionaries, street preachers).
While I do not wish him or others like him any ill will, I think it is a complete waste to prey on the fears of the uneducated and believe it would be a better, less annoying approach to simply try to be my friend first before condemning me to hell. Perhaps that is why many Mormons are such god damn successful businessmen… because they don’t come across as assholes most of the time. But then again, they aren’t real christians, right? They’re a cult because they marry their cousins — an arrangement which went out of style centuries ago.