[The Editors' Verdict]Worrisome Police Confusion as Tension Eases

This year's Halloween passed quietly. Itaewon had a somber atmosphere, and the Halloween decibel levels in front of Hongdae and Gangnam Station were not higher than usual.

However, crowded Halloween celebrations will return. More precisely, the commercialized American-style entertainment day of Halloween will return. Whether it will be the same costume party Halloween or a 'new type of festival' is unknown, but the desire among young people to pick a day and collectively cross the line of everyday life to enjoy themselves remains strong.

The history of the 'Halloween party' is not long. In the United States, in the 1920s, costume drinking parties that subtly broke the Puritan dormitory rules appeared on Halloween, the day before All Saints' Day, which is right after college midterms. It then spread widely as a day for all kinds of costumes and street parties. The countries where Halloween is noisy?Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand (even a Buddhist country)?share the commonality of being under the influence of American commercialism. The European continent is indifferent, saying "Halloween parties are American commercialism."

Halloween in Korea is a sequel to Christmas. Christmas, the day when the nighttime curfew siren used to ring during the authoritarian era, was a day of liberation from curfew. Professor Kang Jun-man of Jeonbuk National University analyzed in a paper ("The History of Christmas in Korea: From the 'Joy of Curfew Lifting' to 'Korean-style Pluralism'") that "the sense of liberation from curfew, (omitted) the desire for Westernization, the linkage effect of Christmas commercialism and popular culture, a sense of unity with the world, and seasonal influences led Christmas to develop into the biggest 'let's party festival' in Korea." In the 2003 romantic comedy "Happy Ero Christmas," actor Cha Tae-hyun says, "If you have sex only one day a year, that day is Christmas Eve."

In the early 2010s, when Christmas began to fade, several imported liquor companies brought Halloween party marketing to Korea, igniting a blazing fire on dry kindling. If you replace 'liberation from curfew' with 'liberation from a rigid society' and 'Christmas' with 'Halloween' in Kang Jun-man's paper, it explains the reason for the dazzling Halloween nights over the past decade. Implicitly, there is also tacit permission for young people's desire to "take off their everyday clothes and indulge in a little deviation for one night."

On the 20th, ahead of Halloween, Mapo-gu in Seoul hung a banner in front of Hongdae stating "Halloween festival is prohibited to prevent crowd accidents," but it was taken down the same day due to a flood of protests. This is evidence that the youth's desire for liberation and the party business that thrives on it cannot be eliminated by government control or guidance.

Law enforcement authorities should pay attention to this point. Halloween-style 'relaxed party crowds' can appear anytime and anywhere, and it is worrying if the police relax their vigilance just because this Halloween has passed. When the president ordered a crackdown on drugs, the crowd was neglected as people searched for drugs (last year's Halloween), and when a tragedy occurred, the police only planned to block the crowd, neglecting drugs (this year's Halloween), showing a confused police response that is worrisome.

The Halloween crowds gathering on the steep hillside of Lan Kwai Fong on Hong Kong Island, much steeper than Itaewon alleys, are controlled all night every year by the Hong Kong police. In 1992, 21 people were crushed to death in the New Year's Eve crowd at Lan Kwai Fong. Since that day, for over 30 years, the Hong Kong police have appeared in advance not only at New Year's Eve events but at all crowded places. Although they lost the cattle, they have since thoroughly managed other barns as well, and there have been no major crowd accidents in Hong Kong since then. This is a lesson our law enforcement authorities should learn.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.