South Korea’s Massage War

Fascinating story in the Independent: The blind have monopolized massage jobs in South Korea ever since Japanese colonists brought the tradition there half a century ago. Two years ago, a South Korean court ruled that a law allowing only the blind to work as masseurs “excessively discriminated” against those with sight. Since then: havoc. Last month, police arrested 26 blind masseurs for burning cars and threatening suicide. Although there are now roughly 7,000 blind masseurs and half a million sighted ones, the Korean government has offered to put a quota on the number of sighted masseurs. Protestors demand that the sighted only perform head and hand massages.