KARA’s Kang Jiyoung Calls Out Police Officer For Behaving Rudely With Elderly Woman
Kang Jiyoung, a member of the iconic second-generation girl group KARA, recently shared her experience of witnessing a police officer failing to do their job properly and misbehaving with an elderly.
On April 23, KST, the singer took to her personal Instagram and relayed the incident, which she called “slightly heavy,” to her audience. She explained that she had to visit the police station that day for some license-related work. Jiyoung said she went in prepared for the procedure because she had looked up all the necessary steps to make it go easier.
But in the window next to her, an old lady stood trying to renew her license. The officer handling her procedure asked her if her eyesight was over 0.8. When the old woman said her eyesight was not over 0.8, the police officer very bluntly told her to get her glasses changed right away.
It turned out she was there to renew her license. Yes, now that I think about it, there have been times when our parents needed to renew their licenses, too. Among the questions the elderly woman was asked, one was about the health check-ups required by the country and whether her vision was over 0.8. The woman said her vision didn’t exceed 0.8. In response, the officer bluntly said she couldn’t renew today or she should immediately get glasses fitted.
— Kang Jiyoung
The elderly woman, Jiyoung noted, was left in distress over this. The idol then said that her problem with the police officer’s conduct was that they didn’t even make an effort to be friendly toward the woman and treated her as if they were very annoyed at her lack of preparedness for the renewal. Jiyoung then added that she saw her own mother in this old woman and got upset imagining how her mother would have felt being treated so unkindly.
What saddened me deeply here was, what if the person next to me had been my mother? If the person assisting us was as unhelpful and rude, and if my mother didn’t know what to do, I would have felt like my world was falling apart witnessing such a situation.
— Kang Jiyoung
She concluded her post by drawing attention to the difficulties older people face in society. She said that while it might not be a big deal for many, the rampant kiosks, applications and so on to get anything done these days can be confusing for anyone. But unlike the younger generation, older people cannot always access the internet with the same ease to understand how things work.
You might think it’s not a big deal. But in this era of rapid development with kiosks and numerous apps, sometimes even I find it hard to keep up… I wish they would provide instructions in large print or make them easier for adults to understand. Because they might not know how to search on the internet or find it difficult. (You might wonder who am I to say such things, but if I can be of help, I will participate in creating instructions).
— Kang Jiyoung
She criticized the police officer for refusing to explain the process to the elderly woman in detail and said she was moved to tears seeing how embarrassed she became. Jiyoung was deeply moved by the elderly woman’s situation and said that she went home with her hands shaking, unable to do anything to help.
Many netizens have praised Jiyoung’s post for bringing attention to the necessary but often overlooked issue of older people being unaccommodated in today’s fast-paced society.
