[Update: Corrections made. Mental note: Don't blog when half asleep. Sorry about that.]
According to
NoCut News and
Yonhap (who have a video), foreign hagwon and university English teachers were among several people arrested on November 5 in Ulsan for using and selling hash. According to NoCut News, 11 people were booked, including two Americans, 20-year-old office worker J and 26-year-old university teacher W, and a total of six
university gyosu* and foreign hagwon English teachers were arrested. Apparently J had 200 grams worth 20,000,000 won at his residence. Another office worker named K (44) was arrested, and Yonhap says he was American.
Yonhap also says that only K
and J were arrested and detained, while ten more were booked without detention. The hash was smoked, police say, between January and October in their homes and 'foreigner clubs' in places like Seoul, Chungcheong-d0, Gangwon-do, and Daegu. The investigation is to be expanded.
[So we have a total of eleven foreigners, among them two office workers, a university teacher, and six foreign (hagwon) English teachers.]
*Note: There's a discrepancy in the numbers in the two articles - NoCut News says there were a total of 11 arrested, and Yonhap says 2 were arrested and ten were booked. Note that NoCut News says that foreign hagwon English teachers were arrested along with University gyosu or professors, but it doesn't say specifically whether the gyosu who were arrested were foreign, other than W.
a total of six university gyosu* and foreign hagwon English teachers were arrested.
ReplyDelete"특히 대학교수와 함께 입건된 원어민 강사 6명은 지인 등을 통해서 마약을 구입해 흡입한 뒤 강단이나 학원에서 수업까지 한 것으로 드러났다."
According to the NoCut news article, there were a professor W(26 years old - so young!)and six native (English) teachers.
The investigation is to be expanded? It's already taken 9 months and taken them into 4 provinces and untold number of "foreigner bars"... how much more expended can they get?
ReplyDeleteI love how they mention the "foreigner bars" too. As if Koreans and gyopos don't have a drug scene in places like Hongdae and Gangnam clubs.
Yeah, yeah, I know. It's a foreigner problem.
Peter, I doubt W is an actual professor. More like a lecturer, as most non-Koreans in university are.
ReplyDeleteROK Hound:
ReplyDeleteI think you are right. Koreans usually call an instructor(강사) a professor(교수).
No doubt there have been many cases gyopo got involved in.
A Chosun Ilbo article on Oct. 23 reported an illicit drug case which involved 28 people including Gyopo. It seems the article focused more on Korean gyopo drug problems.
ReplyDelete'특히 대학교수와 함께 입건된 원어민 강사 6명'... Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it including both the 대학교수 and 원어민 강사 in the six people?
ReplyDeleteAs for 대학교수, that could be a Korean or foreigner... it doesn't say specifically.
NoCut news has that '6' number, but the Yonhap article would leave you thinking they were all foreigners. It's really not clear at all.
Never mind. That specific (W) 대학교수 and six 원어민 강사 arrested with him. Gotcha. What's up with the 20 year old 미국인 회사원? Very strange.
ReplyDeleteI don't see any discrepancy in the numbers in the two articles.
ReplyDeleteBoth says that there were a total of 11검거(detaining the suspects temporarily) and then one of them구속(arrest)-K(44.미국) and ten of them(including J,W) are booked.
Nocut news refered that the 대학교수(W.26) has the same nationality with J(20.미국)and the title of both says they are all foreign.
Am I wrong?
연합 says the 20 year old 미국인 회사원 was in charge of supply. 미국인 회사원J,대학강사W,원어민강사6 are included in 11.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely correct! Sorry, I was pretty tired when I wrote that last night and I didn't double check when I posted it today. My bad. I made corrections in the post.
ReplyDeleteAs for J, I meant, what is a twenty year old American doing working as a 회사원 in Korea? He's very young.
Idiots. I'm for relaxing the laws, but people coming in to another country need to do better than this. Your choices are booze and cigarettes (or nothing). If you can't live with that, instruct English in a different country.
ReplyDeleteagain, what's with the inflated price? 200 grams at 40,000 won (that amount would actually be a lot cheaper since the price goes down the more you buy) per gram only works out to 8,000,000 won, not 20 million.
ReplyDeleteThe NoCut news did not clearly say the identities of the arrested. 1 instructor (gyeosu) + 6 native teachers + 1 office worker = 8 people. And the news article did not reveal the identity of the three.
ReplyDeleteIf 200g of drug costs 20,000,000 won, then 1g of drug costs 200,000 won. It is so expensive! They must be well-paid people or from rich families.
And $1 = about 1,200 won. 200,000 won / 1,200 won = 180. So 1g of hash cost $180. It is so expensive. I guess those arrested were rich or crazy enough to buy hash in that inflated price.
ReplyDeleteOr most probably, as anonymous said,the estimation of the price (by the Korean police) might be inflated.
Whatever!
ReplyDeleteShall I ask him what he's doing as a 회사원 in Korea?
It's the evidence you're human being.Glad to know that.Keep being tired.^-^
Korea's war on drugs is a waste of police resources. Korea must relax its attitude towards harmless soft drugs and should try to combat the violence at the heart of its society. When pedestrians are being run down on the streets of Korea, when women are being beaten senseless by their husbands nightly, when both the young and old are killing themselves regularly because they fell helpless and alone there is no excuse for diverting public money to combat a drug that causes far less social and physical damage than alcohol and nicotine. The manufacturers of cigarettes and alchohol get rich from this needless persecution of people engaged in victimless behaviour. Until Korea achieves a mature perspective on this issue, it will always be in the second rank of nations. None of the people arrested in this bust were engaged in any sort of behaviour which caused harm to others and they should be freed from persecution immediately and allowed to continue with their lives.
ReplyDeleteBob, Bob, Bob.....I agree with all your comments- that is, I would if we were in the US or Canada or whatever. But to lament the arrest of a bunch of people who did something that EVERY SINGLE expat in Korea is aware of as being extremely dangerous and stupid, is silly.
ReplyDeleteTo portray Korea as a violent society is not entirely wrong. But to ignore the fact that such things happen in "mature nations" such as the ones you and I are from, IS wrong.
"Until Korea achieves a mature perspective on this issue, it will always be in the second rank of nations"
You gotta admit, that is a pretty ridiculous thing to say. The logical fallacies in this argument are enough to make my head explode. Just because you like hash (and I too think it should be legal- in the US, though I don't personally enjoy it) doesn't mean that that is the problem that keeps Korea from being in the "first rank of nations." Would that be the nations that allow soft drugs to flow easily?
Sorry for going off, I just HATE the pothead style of turning every argument and issue about any subject into a marijuana-related thing. That is why alcohol is legal and the green stuff isn't. Drinkers don't talk about that shit all the time, they just do it. Potheads turn every argument into a weed-related thing.
(And yes, this argument was not well argued because I am a bit drunk- well, perhaps we do talk about it too much, us alcohol users)