Preliminary results for the HIV testing survey

Yesterday I posted a link to "HIV Testing and Retesting Survey for English Teachers in Korea" which is posted here. Here are the results so far for the question "Which best describes the frequency that you are tested for HIV in Korea?" (Click to enlarge.)

So what we see above is that out of 100 or so responses so far, 66% are being re-tested at least once a year or more, 29% have been tested once for immigration, and 5% haven't been tested.

Even more interesting is that 27% have indicated that they are re-tested for immigration or hagwons, even though this isn't law or even policy. (It should be pointed out that Education offices asking for HIV tests for public school teachers isn't based on any law, it's just their policy.)

It will be interesting to see if more results alter the pattern seen so far or support it.

Please direct any questions about the survey to hivtestingsurvey@gmail.com .

Teachers query EPIK's effectiveness (in 1997)

Yesterday I posted part one of a series in the Korea Herald about the EPIK program - in 1997. Here is part two, which was published on June 16, 1997.

Teachers Query EPIK's Effectiveness

This is the final article in a two-part series on the English Program in Korea. _ Ed.

By Mark Dake, Staff reporter

There are teething pains, to be sure. It can be obviously exasperating, teaching overflowing classes of 50 to 60 rambunctious kids. The textbooks are outdated, the curriculum goals, hazily defined and when East meets West, there can be wide cultural gaps.

But for many foreign teachers placed into hundreds of Korean public schools in landlocked interior towns, large bustling cities and breezy coastal villages, the government mandated English Program in Korea (EPIK) has been an intriguing experience.

"I think it's excellent," said Frank Kelly, 48, a gregarious Scotsman teaching at Keumok Girls High School near Kimpo airport.

"It's the best place I've taught English at in 24 years." Kelly doesn't naively spout platitudes. He's made a lifelong career of instructing English _ in Russia, Spain, Poland, at universities in Paris and Glasgow and now, Korea.

"All the girls are so hard working and the Korean teachers are very pleasant." EPIK began in 1995, and there are currently about 700 or so foreign instructors, mainly Americans and Canadians, in the program.

What do the teachers think of EPIK? Are Korean students picking up English efficiently? Is it worthwhile? "It's basically a very good experience," said Don, an American who has been teaching in Suwon in Kyonggi Province south of Seoul, for two years. But the 40ish American, added that he felt the program wasn't very well organized.

The American's conclusions were partly based on his first year's experiences when he was shuffled to different classes every day, seeing some "20,000 students" and never the same class twice.

Teachers said large class sizes, usually 45-55 students, with as many as l,000 weekly, meeting for 50-minutes, were difficult to organize.

"I like to think we're effective, but I'm not sure," said Canadian Sandra Korpela, 49, at Hapdock Girls' Middle School in Tangjin-gun, South Chungchong Province. "I've been here for 11 months now, and I'm finally getting some students coming up to me and initiating conversations in English. There not long conversations, but its a start."

Teachers also said that Korean students seemed to suffer from an inordinately heavy course load, leaving precious little time to make serious inroads in English.

"The kids aren't learning," stated Charlotte Landes, 57, an American teaching at Demonstration High School at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. "They're taking Korean, French or German, and English (language courses) and Chinese characters, about 15 courses. They are horribly exhausted and in a state of anxiety."

Kelly concurred and said his pupils were "snowed under with work." He recalled teaching in France and Spain, where the average course load was seven or eight subjects, and he favored that system.

When Landes first began, she taught 57 students per class and 914 students weekly. She pushed for change, and now directs class sizes of about 25, twice weekly. She felt she is more successful now.
 
Korpela wanted to know exactly what her EPIK mandate was.

"I asked my district supervisor 'why we are here, why is the government spending so much money to bring us over?'" said Korpela.

"He answered, 'because you are foreigners.'" Korpela took that to mean that her presence was part of a need to provide opportunities for students to gain new perspectives on other cultures, via herself, and the other foreign teachers. In her region, she said, most students had never met anyone outside of Korea.

Assisting Korean teachers certainly is a top priority.

"The greatest benefits of us being here are for the Korean teachers, not the students," said Don, the EPIK language coordinator in Kyonggi Province. "The long range benefits are greater for them, than they are for teaching students for a month or so." Most western teachers felt their Korean counterparts were a pleasure to work beside, but felt that the rigid Korean educational system wasn't conducive to optimum student performance.

Instructors told of using student-centered methods to encourage "interactive, spontaneous" learning, anything to get kids using English as much as possible, in opposition to the host country's teacher-centered lecture system, in which listening, not talking, was stressed.

Korpela said in her first semester, she spent afternoons teaching workshops to 60 Korean teachers, but discovered perhaps only three or four at most were willing to adopt new methods.

"The teachers didn't want to do new things," she said. "Change seemed to be abhorrent to them." Don said that teaching teachers new "methodology is the biggest problem. When I try to teach it to Korean teachers, they don't really seem to understand it." As Western and Korean teachers work side by side, wrestling for a balance in teaching styles and methods, and the kinks get worked out of the system, the positives nevertheless certainly seem to outweigh the negatives.

Sixty-five percent of this year's teachers wanted to renew their contracts for another stint, according to the Seoul Education Office, indicating most teachers felt comfortable in their positions.

Thankfully, since the Seoul Education Office has cut all of its secondary school positions for NSETs, the program has apparently succeeded, and the problems discussed in this sixteen year-old article no longer apply. Right?

HIV Testing & Retesting Survey for English Teachers in Korea

A survey titled "HIV Testing and Retesting Survey for English Teachers in Korea" has been posted here. It took me two minutes to fill it out. Let's just say that the results of this anonymous survey will be put to very, very good use.

Again, the survey can be found here, and if there are any questions about the survey, please direct them to hivtestingsurvey@gmail.com .

A look at EPIK in 1997

What with EPIK going through changes and reductions in the number of teachers, it's interesting to take a look at the program's beginnings. As I've mentioned before,

In 1995, at the crest of a wave of private language institutes sweeping the country, the Korean Ministry of Education launched a pilot program called KORETTA, or Korea English Teacher Training Assistants, later renamed the English Program in Korea, or EPIK. [...]  EPIK, however, was marked from the start by disorganization, miscommunication and allegations of corruption by its foreign teachers.

In 1996, a summer intake that consisted of several orientation sessions, run by Korea University, brought in more than 860 teachers, but by the third week of October, fewer than 500 remained [468, according to the Korea Times on Oct. 23]. Those who quit cited reasons such as inadequate housing, late salary payments and refusal of severance pay.

A June 12, 1997 Korea Herald article delved into the "refusal of severance pay" aspect of that last sentence:

EPIK Contract Dispute Creates Dissent

This is the first of two articles about the English Program in Korea, a government organization of foreign teachers instructing English in the public school system. _ Ed.

____ By Mark Dake Staff reporter

Severance Pay. It's a term that English Program in Korea (EPIK) officials are likely wishing they'd never heard of and one that has resulted in a public relations nightmare.EPIK is an organization that was installed by the Korean Ministry of Education (MOE) in 1995, placing foreign teachers into the public school system to instruct English.

Approximately 600 teachers, mainly from America and Canada, but also from other English speaking countries, were hired last year. The first division employed in June, July and August 1996, signed 52-week contracts and should receive 30 days severance pay if they terminate their employment this summer.

But the EPIK suddenly did an about face during last summer's hiring process, creating new 50-week contracts. That two week difference was a huge factor. Severance pay, something the EPIK hadn't counted on doling out at all, could thus be avoided by reducing the employment term to less than 52-weeks, the minimum term required to work in Korea before being eligible for the benefit.

So, approximately 280 teachers hired last August and September who signed the 50-week contracts, are thus ineligible for the benefits.

All future EPIK contracts are now for 48-50 weeks, eliminating severance pay.
It was a move that caused resentment among teachers. Complaints have flooded into the Seoul MOE office, to teacher's respective national embassies, and to lawyer's offices and legal centers.

For example, one Canadian teacher signed a Sept. 2, 1996 to Aug. 17, 1997 contract, ineligible for severance pay, while an Australian teacher's contract from June 21, 1996 to June 21, 1997, allows him to collect the approximately 1.6 million won severance payment.

"I went to a Legal Aid center, and they told me I was entitled to the money," said the Canadian teacher, who for fear of retribution from EPIK, didn't want her name used. "What can I do now? I'll look for employment elsewhere." The U.S. Embassy has also been attempting to remedy the situation.

"We're well aware of the complaints from teachers regarding severance pay," said an Embassy official. "We met with the EPIK director last week, but he was vague when we asked the question about severance." A MOE employee who works closely with the EPIK, admitted the contract changes have caused problems. "It (severance pay) wasn't included in the budget," said the employee, not wanting to be named. "We're trying to make an effort to satisfy about 80 percent of the teachers. But we have to come with a lot more money. It's expensive." Severance pay, also known as retirement pay, (vacation pay in Canada), is mandatory for all workers in Korea, regardless of nationality, after working the minimum 52-weeks.

According to Article 34 in the "New Labor-related Laws" booklet published March 1997 by the Labor Ministry, "An average wage of more than 30 days shall be paid for each year of consecutive years employed... However, if the worker was employed for less than one year, this shall not apply." The monthly wage for EPIK teachers ranges from 1.2 to 2 million won, and an average severance package would be about 1.6 million won.

That figure, multiplied by 600 EPIK teachers, adds up to about 960 million won annually, or $1.1 million.

That sum is obviously one that the MOE doesn't want to part with.

The method they've undertaken to save the money, creating a 50-week work year, is legal.

"It's not illegal for employers to hire employees for less than one year," stated Kim Chong-yun, an official of the Labor Standards Division with the Labor Ministry. "It's the employer's decision." "Some employers are taking advantage of this provision to avoid paying the severance pay," said Kim. "They usually like to make a contract with employers for less than one-year." The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) oversees the EPIK in Seoul schools. An SMOE employee, who didn't want her name used, said that foreign teachers receive generous benefits while working with EPIK, and that severance pay was not necessary.

"In Seoul, we (SMOE) pay a 35 million won apartment key deposit, fully covered medical insurance, air fare, a settlement allowance of 250,000 won, good salaries and Korean holidays," she said. "And foreign teachers work far less than a 40-hour week. They don't work during mid-term and final exams." These exam periods in Korean public schools can last for weeks.

The SMOE employee said teachers can renew their contracts for up to three years, and that many teacher are satisfied with EPIK, citing a 65 percent renewal rate for this year.

One of the complaints from teachers regarding the severance issue though, was that both the SMOE and MOE offices have not been forthcoming about the contracts and severance pay, which they said has led to distrust.

"It's impossible to get straight answers, no matter how high up the chain of command you go," said Rod Rothwell, an Australian teaching in the EPIK in Seoul, after inquiring at the SMOE.

An employee with the EPIK Office at the Korea National University of Education in Chongwon, said that it is up to the 15 Korean regional MOE offices to decide individual cases.

The American Embassy listens to problems from U.S. workers in Korea, but it will not intervene on an individual basis. The embassy official said the severance issue probably seems unfair to individual teachers, and that it did create a bad image for the program. But she did issue a warning to instructors.

"Both parties have signed and agreed to a contract, and each party must live up to that contract," she advised. "You can't change contracts retroactively. You need to know what you're signing, before you sign." Teachers who do renew for a second year will receive some severance pay after the second year, but at this time, that amount is unknown.

Kim said that workers unhappy with a contract can negotiate with the employer to change it. But altering the EPIK contracts doesn't seem like a probable scenario.

It appears as if EPIK will save a substantial amount of money by eliminating severance pay for the hundreds of teachers annually who stay for just one year. One can only wait and see though, if the obvious fallout will have made the move worthwhile.

The old 'fire the teacher just before they finish their contract so you don't have to pay them severance pay' is a much spoken of hagwon trick; it's interesting to see that back in the day the public school system undertook to do that legally. One wonders when the change came that led to 12 month contracts in public schools.

SMOE's purported "65 percent renewal rate" is interesting; I doubt that many renewed the next year, and the way in which the 1997 financial crisis derailed the EPIK program is made clear by this chart published by the Seoul Sinmun three years ago showing the number of native speaking teachers placed in public schools between 1995 and 2010:

(At top are the number of teachers by year, followed by a breakdown by nationality of teachers currently working, and at bottom are the percentages of teachers with qualifications.) As can be seen above, the number of teachers would not reach 1997 levels until 2004, seven years later.

Random photos

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday.

I was at a training session at a school in Mok-dong the other day and saw this view out the window and was compelled to photograph it.

As for this, I'm not sure if it's accidental or a joke. I'd imagine it's the latter. (Taken on an apartment rooftop in Magok-dong.)

 ('Danger')

25,000 kids studied English in hagwons in Seoul in 1997?

On October 13, 1997, the Korea Herald published the following article:

25,000 Youngsters Learn English at Private Institutes

About 25,000 pre-school and primary level school kids take English lessons at private language institutes in Seoul, according to a report released yesterday. The report, submitted by the Seoul Office of Education to the National Assembly, indicated 146 English language institutes, including three foreign-owned ones, had enrollment of 24,928 kids under the age of 12 as of the end of August.

About 1,200 children under six-years-old were registered at private institutes in three affluent wards in Kangnam-gu, Soch-gu and Kangdong-gu.

Data also showed the 146 institutes employed 429 English-speaking instructors, 33 percent of the total 1,300 foreigners hired by foreign language institutes in Seoul. The fees range from 40,000 won ($44) to 390,000 won ($433) monthly for classes lasting from 45 minutes to five hours daily.

The Seoul Office of Education also issued warnings to 19 private institutes for enrolling third-grade primary school students. The Ministry of Education in March banned language institutes from admitting such students because English instruction was included in third-grade school curriculum this year for the first time.

 That figure of 25,000 seems rather low, but I wasn't here at the time, so who knows? Any ideas?

To be sure, the figure of "1,300 foreigners hired by foreign language institutes in Seoul" must be too low - I mean, Rep. Kim Han-gil said a few months earlier that there were 70,000 unqualified foreigners teaching in Korea! Surely someone as unbiased as he was couldn't be wrong, could he?

Chosun Ilbo provides an update about Sarah Graydon for teachers' day

In a happier and more inspiring story than the previous one, a few weeks ago I mentioned fundraising efforts for Gwangju-based teacher Sarah Graydon, who is in the hospital suffering from ulcerative colitis. The Chosun Ilbo published an article about her today which features video of her and tells us that yesterday, on the eve of Teacher's Day, her former students from Geumho Middle School visited her in Chonnam National University Hospital in Gwangju. It notes that when she worked at the school she volunteered to teach extra classes for eager students and conversation classes for parents as well. Educators from her school and the district education office helped to raise money for her, and students alone raised 2.6 million won.
 
Again, there's a Facebook page here and more information about her here.

American English teacher robs convenience store, heads to a casino

One public school foreign English teacher won't be getting any letters for teachers' day today. From Yonhap:

American English teacher robs convenience store... blows the money at a casino

Taught openly for three days before he was arrested

(Daegu - Yonhap News) An elementary school native speaking English teacher robbed a convenience store but the fact he was arrested was belatedly confirmed.

For three days after committing the crime the currently employed native speaking English teacher openly went to school and taught children until he was arrested.

Gyeongsangbuk-do Police Agency revealed that they arrested American native speaking teacher A (27) for going into a convenience store with a weapon, threatening a female clerk and stealing 600,000 won and cigarettes

Teacher A is suspected of entering a convenience store in Gyeongsan at 10:20 pm on April 21 wearing a hat, sunglasses and a hood to cover his face. He threatened a female clerk with a weapon he'd prepared and stole 600,000 won and ten packs of cigarettes.

The investigation found that the day after the robbery, he went to the casino at the Hotel Inter-Burgo in Daegu and bought 200,000 won worth of casino chips and exchanged 50,000 won notes to use.

An official from the Gyeongsangbuk-do Police Agency said that "Teacher A was drunk when he committed the crime." "CCTV cameras in the area of the convenience store revealed that teacher A carefully committed the crime, changing his clothes after leaving the store and returning home."

The arrested teacher, A, came to Korea in August 2010 and worked as a native speaking teacher in places like Yeongdeok and Gyeongsan in Gyeongsangbuk-do.

He taught elementary school students 15 hours a week in after school English classes.

A school official said, "Until we were notified by police, we knew absolutely nothing about the crime." "Teacher A was stripped of his qualifications on May 1."

If the accusations are true, there's not much more to say than "Nicely done, douchebag."

I do find the whole "he taught openly" part to be odd (was he going to teach secretly?), though that's more a journalistic convention than anything else. Stranger still is the idea that the school - or anyone - could have known what he'd done prior to his arrest. "Until we were notified by police, we knew absolutely nothing about the crime." Well, duh.

I'd be curious to see how long he's put in jail for - I imagine armed robbery prior to a trip to a casino won't go over very well in court.

Kim Han-gil: "Elementary school students are defenseless before things like AIDS"

On July 10, 1997, two months after Rep. Kim Han-gil's column about "white good-for-nothings" flocking to Korea to teach English (but in reality to chase Korean women), the Kukmin Ilbo published the following article (and was the only newspaper to give space to Rep. Kim's views):

Rep. Kim Han-gil reveals there are 70,000 unqualified English teachers

Saying "Elementary school students are defenseless before things like AIDS," on the morning of the 10th Rep. Kim Han-gil, from his place on the Ministry of Education's National Assembly activity report, claimed that, with the implementation of elementary school English education and with English hagwons also springing up everywhere, many unqualified native speaking instructors have entered the country this year, with their number currently reaching 70,000.

Rep. Kim said, "This figure for the number of unqualified foreign instructors is an estimate based on things like Ministry of Justice statistics on the number of foreigners and English hagwons." "That they don't even have to take drug or AIDS tests in particular and are entering the country and teaching children in hagwons or homes is a serious problem."

Rep. Kim also said that of the 660 native speaking teachers invited by the Ministry of Education for elementary and Middle school English classes, 60 did not fulfill their contracts and returned home halfway through, due to their being ill, unable to adjust, or were absent without permission, revealing a weak point in the recruiting and management of native speaking teachers.

In addition, Rep Kim revealed that, riding the early English boom, there are 20 companies, each charging 3,000,000 won, that arrange overseas English language training for Korean children during summer vacation. The programs that these companies organize, however, are mostly filled with tourist and sports activities [as opposed to actual language study], which encourages excessive consumption.

To help put this in context, this Hankyoreh article from February 1997 reveals Rep. Kim to be an opponent of early English education in elementary schools, saying that Korean language learning needs to be strengthened first. As mentioned above, by 1997, elementary school English education had been implemented, and his assertion that there were many "unqualified native speaking instructors" was one way to question the legitimacy of the system.

As well, we see his ridiculous assertion that there are 70,000 unqualified native speaking instructors. I guess "This figure for the number of unqualified foreign instructors is an estimate based on things like Ministry of Justice statistics on the number of foreigners and English hagwons" sounds better than "I pulled this number out of my ass." At the height of placing foreign teachers in public schools (2010-2011), the number of E-2 visa holders barely topped 24,000 (and that includes over 1,000 Chinese and Japanese teachers); it's been estimated that F-visa holders make up perhaps 10% of that figure, making perhaps 30,000 foreign teachers a high estimate. 70,000 is simply unbelievable. Not that anyone would ever question a national assembly representative, even though several have so completely gotten statistics about foreign teachers wrong in the past (such as saying that 22,000 E-2 visa holders were missing due to use of the wrong statistics, or that foreign teacher crime was "serious" while providing statistics which showed the opposite).

Rep.Kim's assertion that "of the 660 native speaking teachers invited by the Ministry of Education for elementary and Middle school English classes, 60 did not fulfill their contracts and returned home halfway through" is reminiscent of many articles which have declared the system flawed because some teachers break their contracts, with the most notorious being in September 2010 when either National Assembly representatives or Yonhap used incorrect statistics (again!) to paint more than 50% of foreign teachers in public schools as breaking contracts and disrupting English education. (These stats were never corrected and were used as the basis of this article six months ago.)

Rep.Kim also failed to mention the possibility that it wasn't the teachers who were breaking the contracts:

In 1995, at the crest of a wave of private language institutes sweeping the country, the Korean Ministry of Education launched a pilot program called KORETTA, or Korea English Teacher Training Assistants, later renamed the English Program in Korea, or EPIK. It was the first and only nationwide government-initiated program to address the demand for English education in Korea, designed to place native English speakers in public school classrooms to co-teach alongside Korean English teachers. EPIK, however, was marked from the start by disorganization, miscommunication and allegations of corruption by its foreign teachers.

In 1996, a summer intake that consisted of several orientation sessions, run by Korea University, brought in more than 860 teachers, but by the third week of October, fewer than 500 remained [468, according to the Times on Oct. 23]. Those who quit cited reasons such as inadequate housing, late salary payments and refusal of severance pay.

As mentioned yesterday, Rep. Kim was also ahead of his time by declaring of foreign teachers, "That they don't even have to take drug or AIDS tests in particular and are entering the country and teaching children in hagwons or homes is a serious problem." To highlight the 'threat' posted by these white teachers, Rep. Kim states that "Elementary school students are defenseless before things like AIDS."

As I've mentioned before, media discourse has often portrayed Korea has as being '무방비 (defenseless)' regarding AIDS. Here are the title of some articles published just prior to the 1988 Olympics:

Our country is indeed a zone defenseless before AIDS (Joongang Ilbo, September 8 1988)
The highs and lows of a festive atmosphere welcoming the Olympics -' defenseless' before AIDS (Joongang Ilbo September 10,1988)
The 'defenseless before AIDS' Olympics (Hankyoreh, September 2, 1988)


That Rep. Kim would use it in 1997, and that Anti English Spectrum would use it in 2006 (saying that Korean "women are being defenselessly exposed to AIDS" by untested foreign English teachers) shouldn't be surprising.

Lastly, Rep. Kim's criticism of "excessive consumption" reflects a concern of the time (prior to the 1997 monetary crisis), one documented in Laura C. Nelson's book "Measured Excess: status, gender, and consumer nationalism in South Korea."

Lecture on Korean-Japanese Relations from 1392 to 1592 tonight

Tonight Kenneth Robinson will be giving a lecture titled "Pirates and Traders, and Fake Japanese, too: Korean-Japanese Relations from 1392 to 1592" for the Royal Asiatic Society:

Pirate raids prompted the Choson Korea government to encourage trade by other Japanese in the early fifteenth century, and Japanese soon were sending dozens of trade missions each year. The Choson government gradually established detailed regulations for managing that trade, even dividing Japanese traders into a hierarchy. From the 1460s, those regulations and the hierarchy became tools by which Japanese traded through imposter identities, that is, people that did not exist or people who did not know that their identities were being used. Why did the Choson government not always stop imposter trade and what importance did imposter trade have in the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592?

I'm looking forward to this lecture, especially because I just finished Frontier Contact Between Choson Korea and Tokugawa Japan, by James B. Lewis, which deals with this subject in detail in the post-Imjin War era. Many of the issues the book deals with which I found interesting relate to the battle by Koreans to gain sovereignty over foreigners (Japanese, in this case) in their land, cultural differences which caused problems near the Japanese trading post, and issues of prostitution, miscegenation, and the problem caused historically by mixed race Koreans during the Imjin War. Much of this can be applied to current SOFA issues, perceptions of foreign male-Korean female couples, and the debate over multiculturalism. In other words, topics that are obviously right up my alley.

The lecture will be held at 7:30 pm tonight (Tuesday) in the Residents' Lounge on the 2nd floor of the Somerset Palace in Seoul, which is behind Jogyesa Temple, and is 7,000 won for non-members and free for members.

Canadian - Korean child given a windpipe made from her own stem cells

[Update - Below, Kushibo links to a site for raising money for the girl's care.]

Here's a more upbeat story about a foreign English teacher than a lot of the stuff I've been posting recently:

A 2-year-old girl born without a windpipe now has a new one grown from her own stem cells, the youngest patient in the world to benefit from the experimental treatment.

Canadian-South Korean Hannah Warren has been unable to breathe, eat, drink or swallow on her own since she was born in South Korea in 2010. Until the operation at a central Illinois hospital, she had spent her entire life in a hospital in Seoul. Doctors there told her parents there was no hope and they expected her to die.

The stem cells came from Hannah’s bone marrow, extracted with a special needle inserted into her hip bone. They were seeded in a lab onto a plastic scaffold, where it took less than a week for them to multiply and create a new windpipe.

About the size of a 3-inch tube of penne pasta, it was implanted April 9 in a nine-hour procedure.[...]

Only about one in 50,000 children worldwide are born with the same defect. The stem-cell technique has been used to make other body parts besides windpipes and holds promise for treating other birth defects and childhood diseases, her doctors said.

The operation brought together an Italian surgeon based in Sweden who pioneered the technique, a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital of Illinois in Peoria who met Hannah’s family while on a business trip to South Korea, and Hannah — born to a Newfoundland man and Korean woman who married after he moved to that country to teach English.

Hannah’s parents had read about Dr. Paolo Macchiarini’s success using stem-cell based tracheas but couldn’t afford to pay for the operation at his centre, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. So Dr. Mark Holterman helped the family arrange to have the procedure at his Peoria hospital, bringing in Macchiarini to lead the operation. Children’s Hospital waived the cost, likely hundreds of thousands of dollars, Holterman said.

There's more background on this story here. She seems like quite the little trouper in the photos in the articles (or these ones), and what science has been able to accomplish in this case is pretty amazing.

One politician's take on foreign English teachers in 1997

On May 21, 1997, the Kookmin Ilbo (which recently published this editorial about foreign English teachers) published the following column:

Nude model and white men

A young Korean-American woman famous for appearing as a nude model in the American magazine Playboy returned to her homeland yesterday and received 'red carpet' treatment. [Yet] when global artists visit our country, there isn't this kind of fuss. From the time when she entered the country at the airport a desperate spectacle broke out as hundreds of reporters scuffled over who would be able negotiate television appearances [with the woman].

The realities of this country [which is highly conservative] is such that when an actress [recently] took off her clothes on stage she was arrested; and there is a talented author named Jang Jeong-il* who was nevertheless punished by the court [for his writing] because it was considered pornographic - neither of them profited from their works [in contrast to this woman, the nude model].

At any rate, this woman proudly said, "I'm proud that men see me as sexy." And likewise our society - especially the women - also feels proud of her.

Was she proud of herself for being found sexy by tall white men who speak English well even though she is a Korean with short legs? On a TV show she said that when she was 21 she was frugal with living expenses and saved up money for breast implants. She also said, "To tell you the truth, I also wanted to get a nose job, but I didn't want to change the face my parents gave me."

These days, meanwhile, unemployed people in English speaking countries are flocking to Korea. It's similar to how throngs of unemployed people throughout the US headed west after rumors spread that gold had been discovered in San Francisco in 1849. This land is being targeted as a paradise for white good-for-nothings according to newspapers like the Washington Post.**

The number of white English instructors is increasing because 'listening and speaking' has come into fashion when studying English. Currently there are 7,800 foreigners with formal English instructor qualifications, a number that has doubled in the last two years. Among them are a good many with things like fake diplomas, and the discovery of the truth about their qualifications has stirred up public criticism. Moreover, the number of foreigners who have entered the country on tourist visas and teach English illegally is estimated to be 40,000-80,000. Among white instructors who are charged with training our elementary school English teachers there are also those who are unqualified; at one school 7 unqualified white instructors were uncovered all at once.

It's normal for white people to make a fortune teaching private lessons in Korea, earning around 50 million to 80 million won a year. There are signs for lectures at places like hagwons, but the real money is in visiting homes to teach groups. Not only that, the reason white men really like Korea is to chase after Korean women. Not long ago, it came out that an unqualified English instructor who was arrested had fooled around with around 20 women, angering the sincere men of this land. To be frank, most unqualified native speaking English instructors are people who had not found a place in their own country and felt left out. As they enter the country on tourist visas, they do not have to take AIDS or drug tests. A famous entertainer caught for a drug offense confessed that he obtained the drugs through a white English conversation teacher. If you go to yogwans in Gwanghwamun where white English instructors live together, the smell of marijuana is not hard to find. While there are also lots of workers from Southeast Asia here, they have a lot less impact upon our society. The seriousness of the problem with unqualified white English instructors, however, is that they are personally penetrating each home of our society's middle class under the pretext of English conversation study. The thought that the low quality culture of English speaking countries is penetrating into living rooms is very serious. This is a big deal. (The author is a national assembly member).

I omitted part of the title of this column; the full title was "Nude model and white men (Kim Han-gil's column)." For those who don't know, Rep. Kim Han-gil was elected head of the Democratic Party last weekend:

A high-profile former aide to President Kim Dae-jung became the chairman of the nation’s largest opposition party and he promised reform to restore luster to the party after last year’s defeat in the presidential election.

Kim Han-gill, a writer-turned-politician and four-term lawmaker, won the chairmanship election Saturday by a large margin. [...]

Kim, 60, is a well-known novelist and was a reporter for the Hankook Ilbo and also San Francisco bureau chief for the JoongAng Ilbo.

He became famous in 1991 when he released a romance novel titled “The Woman’s Man,” a story of a romance between a daughter of a president and an ordinary man. It became a best seller. He became more popular in 1995 as he married Choi Myoung-gill, a top actress at the time.

Kim entered the political arena in 1996 with the support of then-presidential candidate Kim Dae-jung. He took a variety of high-ranking posts in the Kim administration. He was the youngest presidential secretary for policy-making ever and also culture minister.

Perhaps, if we want to get a better grasp of what he wrote back in 1997, his first marriage, to Lee Min-ah, first daughter of former Culture Minster Lee O-young - which is not mentioned above - should be noted. As is described here,

After graduating from Ewha Womans University’s English Literature Department, Lee married [...] Kim Han-gil and moved to the United States. She graduated from law school there and served as the California state public prosecutor in Los Angeles [from 1989 to 2002].

From what I have heard elsewhere, despite his becoming San Francisco bureau chief for the JoongAng Ilbo, he wasn't as successful as his wife, who became a public prosecutor. It should also be noted that after they divorced she married someone named Jeff Spencer Buchanan (she unfortunately died of cancer last year). Perhaps I'm making too much out of this information, but it's hard for me to read some of the what he wrote in the column above - where he constantly harps on about 'white men' - and not wonder if the former influenced the latter.

As for his column, what a tour de force it is. Starting off by talking about a Korean American nude model (clearly Sung-hi Lee) who was "found sexy by tall white men who speak English well," he suddenly segues into talking about foreign English teachers, a correlation that seems rather similar to how the 2005 English Spectrum Incident unfolded (in which the ire of netizens was raised by photos of a 'sexy costume' party involving underdressed Korean women and foreign English teachers).

Much of what Rep. Kim writes about, however, harkens back to the French foreign language teacher scandal of 1984. Referring to Korea as being seen as "a paradise for white good-for-nothing" recalls the Joongang Ilbo article "Korea is "Ali Baba's" Cave," while "unemployed people in English speaking countries are flocking to Korea" sounds rather similar to the article "'I Want to Strike it Rich in Seoul Too' - Continuous Job Inquiries by the French," or this article, in which it's said "Parisians are flocking" to Korea. This Joongang Ilbo editorial from that time lays out a blueprint for much of Rep. Kim would write 13 years later:

The true educational effect of foreign language learning is that when learning to speak and write a foreign country’s language, to some degree one learns its culture and 'spirit' as well. Attaching importance to conversation, [learners] can't distinguish a teacher's or instructor's standard of refinement and mistake them for nothing but a 'tape recorder.' Ultimately there's a worry that when learning conversation students will imitate that country's vulgar culture, vulgar living language, and vulgar values. 

Rep. Kim's comment, "The thought that the low quality culture of English speaking countries is penetrating into living rooms is very serious" echoes the editorial above, though he makes a valid point when he notes that "unqualified white English instructors [...] personally penetrat[e] each home of our society's middle class under the pretext of English conversation study."[And yes, while other words could have been used, I thought 'penetrate' an apt translation.]

Other sections of Rep. Kim's column, however, point toward the future. "Among them are a good many with things like fake diplomas, and the discovery of the truth about their qualifications has stirred up public criticism." That certainly sounds familiar, as does the term "unqualified native speaking English instructors." He also says that "the number of foreigners who have entered the country on tourist visas and teach English illegally is estimated to be 40,000-80,000," showing that reports like this one from a month ago overestimating the number of foreign teachers on tourist visas have something of a pedigree. He also states that "there are 7,800 foreigners with formal English instructor qualifications, a number that has doubled in the last two years." Looking at the statistics of E-2s here (which only go back to 2,000, mind you), makes me very skeptical of that statistic. He also ridiculously overestimates the amount of money being made by foreign teachers ("50 million to 80 million won a year"). While there was a lot of money being spent on English lessons prior to the 1997 monetary crisis, one of the reasons teaching in Korea was popular with foreigners was the favourable exchange rate (800 won to the dollar or so), not the high salaries.

As we near the end of his column, then we start to see attitudes that become mainstream in the media after the English Spectrum Incident in 2005. We're told

the reason white men really like Korea is to chase after Korean women. Not long ago, it came out that an unqualified English instructor who was arrested had fooled around with around 20 women, angering the sincere men of this land.

This is reminiscent of the message on the front page of Anti-English Spectrum's site between 2007 and 2009:

One day, our anger overflowed, as we felt unendurable humiliation through reading of the debasement of Korean women by the arrogant, infamous English Spectrum.

Rep. Kim also makes the foreign teacher - drug connection:

A famous entertainer caught for a drug offense confessed that he obtained the drugs through a white English conversation teacher. If you go to yogwans in Gwanghwamun where white English instructors live together, the smell of marijuana is not hard to find.

I'm kind of curious about how Rep. Kim knew what marijuana smells like. On the other hand, he did live in San Francisco for quite a while. Perhaps the most notable part of Rep. Kim's column is when he states this:

As they enter the country on tourist visas, they do not have to take AIDS or drug tests.

Actually, even if the foreign teachers had entered the country on E-2 visas, they would not have had to take AIDS or drug tests (only entertainers and migrant workers had to take HIV tests, and no one took drug tests). Rep. Kim's spiritual heirs in this regard, Anti-English Spectrum, would take up this cause and find success ten years later, in 2007. This would be after Rep. Kim tried to bring attention to this 'problem' within the national assembly himself, however. I'll (hopefully) post an article about that tomorrow.



* Jang Jeong-il's fourth novel 'Lies' "was banned, recalled and pulped less than a month after it was published in 1996, and the author subsequently had to serve two months in jail as a "pornographer"." Jang was the first Korean writer to be so convicted. More about this book and the movie based on it can be read here.

**I've searched for this supposed Washington Post article in its archives but can't find any such article.