The Palseokdam pool at Cheonggyecheon in Seoul, on Dec. 14, 2018. [Photo by Jung Hee-jo/The Korea Herald]
The Palseokdam pool at Cheonggyecheon in Seoul, on Dec. 14, 2018. [Photo by Jung Hee-jo/The Korea Herald]

A video showing a middle-aged man and woman deliberately collecting coins thrown into Cheonggyecheon — a popular Seoul tourist destination where visitors toss coins to make wishes — has gone viral and stirred controversy online.

The roughly two-and-a-half-minute clip was posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday under the caption "Outrage meter rising at Cheonggyecheon's ugly scene."

A video showing a man and woman collecting coins near the Palseokdam pool at Cheonggyecheon has spread online, stirring controversy. [Captured from X]
A video showing a man and woman collecting coins near the Palseokdam pool at Cheonggyecheon has spread online, stirring controversy. [Captured from X]

The person who posted the video claimed that "two thieves were happily stealing money at Cheonggyecheon."

The footage shows a woman with an umbrella wading into the stream to pick up coins.

The location is the Palseokdam pool at Cheonggyecheon, often called Seoul's Trevi Fountain, where coins from around the world tossed by domestic and foreign tourists are routinely visible on the bottom. The Seoul Facilities Corporation, which manages Cheonggyecheon, collects the "lucky coins" each year and donates Korean currency to the Seoul Scholarship Foundation and foreign currency to the Korean Committee for UNICEF.

In the video, the woman shielded her face with her umbrella as she gathered the coins, while a man accompanying her picked them up without hesitation. The woman pointed him toward a wishing stone inside the Palseokdam pool — a stone set up for visitors to toss coins onto — and he collected the coins that had fallen around it as well. The pair placed the coins in a bag they had brought and walked away calmly.

At the time, a large number of people, including families on outings, were gathered around the Palseokdam pool.

A sign at the site reads that lucky coins collected from Palseokdam are used to support education for children in Korea and around the world through the Seoul Scholarship Foundation and the Korean Committee for UNICEF.

Online users who saw the video expressed outrage, demanding that those involved be identified and held accountable.


jshan@heraldcorp.com