South Korea, Taxi Driver sets himself on fire

The recording of this video took place a couple months back in the waking of some major protests here in South Korea. The local taxi companies were rallying people together to protest the intended release of a car share system that was being implemented by the South Korean Kakao company.

Kakao is a very successful messaging app, but that is not all. The company offers a taxi calling service, maps, similar to that of google maps, Kakao story, which is a mobile blog type app, and a platform on which businesses can advertise their services through a nifty shopping arrangement for a large number of the countrys 50 million inhabitants.

It is no wonder that the taxi companies felt threatened when Kakao announced its intention to add a competing service, which would in its essence be similar to that of Uber. Stories of Uber began circulating the news, leading people to believe that Uber was the main reason for the demonstrations. Koreans tend to be quite patriotic and so proclaiming the possibility of an American company entering the South Korean market and stealing the jobs of South Korean taxi drivers certainly played on the emotions of enough people.

The self immolation with fire came as a shock to a lot of people, and although wasn't the first instance of a person setting themselves on fire in protest here in South Korea, it certainly was the first since me moving here in 2005. Clearly it must take some strong forces to push any individual to such a breaking point, and this clearly was no different. The question that begs asking is, was it really effective?