Angry sidewalk

I wasn't expecting to see this on the ground:



It was out in front of a hagwon, but not one that teaches English.

Behead the King!

The Korea Times looks at a 2 volume history book titled "Behead the King'' written by historian Baek Ji-won, which examines Joseon dynasty-era Korea from the point of view of the lower classes and slaves. It also looks at the negative effects this forgotten history has had on modern-day Korea. It's certainly a catchier title than "A People's History of the Joseon Dynasty." It was nice to see this:

He also blasted the Korean fantasy of "minjok,'' based on the perception of a one-blooded nation, saying that Korean ethnic roots can be traced back to a mixture of various tribes such as Kitans, Malgal, Mongolian, Han and Yemaek.

It's not uncommon to see the sentences "Koreans are a homogenous race" and "Korea was invaded many times" in the same paragraph, with little thought given to the effect the latter must have had on the former.

The article ends with this:

The author commented that both historians and the public turn deaf ears on telling the truth of history. ``Historians conceal the disgraceful facts of history, while the public don't want to look into their shameful past. But by exploring the past, we can see the way of the future and not repeat the same mistakes,'' he said.

Sounds good to me.

Hanging out with older men at Jongmyo Park

The abstract for an essay in the latest Korea Journal titled "Stigma, Lifestyle, and Self in Later Life: The Meaning and Paradox of Older Men’s Hang-Out Culture at Jongmyo Park" by Chung Gene-Woong can be found here (hat tip to Mark).

The abstract makes no mention of the nearby bars where "men's hang-out culture" takes place, and certainly makes no mention this aspect of later life.

Fun tidbit: This photo reveals that there were still lots of houses in front of Jongmyo in 1945, though a small open area can be seen. It's likely the result of a fire break built (or demolished, really) by the Japanese in preparation for US firebombing during World War II.


More on aerial photos, and a list (and a photo) of the fire breaks can be found here. I don't know when the park in front of Jongmyo was built, but it may be a part of the legacy of the fire breaks, much like the Seun Sangga.

The cardinal and the first lady

[Update - In the comments, Park's letters are mentioned. A Joongang Ilbo article looks at his letters here.]


Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan's funeral is now past, but one of the interesting things about his passing is this:

The posthumous cornea donation by Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan has inspired many Koreans to sign up as organ donors.

Dr. Joo Choun-ki of Kangnam St. Mary’s Hospital, who performed the procedure and examined the corneas, said Kim had cataract surgery in 2001 but his corneas were good for transplantation. Two people at the top of the waitlist received a cornea each.

As a result of his example, many more people are registering to donate organs, and, perhaps being influenced by this, the government wants to make it easier to declare someone brain dead in order to get more organs to people on waiting list. As the latter article notes, "A shortage of organ donations has been a chronic problem in Korea," something that I looked at briefly here, so one hopes the effect of the late cardinal's example is a lasting one.

Regarding his funeral, a Korea Times article asked, "Have We Mourned Like This Before?" The answer is, of course, yes. The most recent example would be this, from a year ago:

Of course, the masses of people who came here were paying their respects to a building, not a person

Other funerals came into my head, such as Park Chung-hee's, in 1979. Upon searching, I found this article (and others), which suggested Park and Kim Ku (whose 1949 funeral can be seen here) as precedents. It also suggested a third person, and the first that came to mind for me.

Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan at the Blue House in 1969 celebrating

Park Geun-hye's graduation from (the Catholic) Sungshin High School.

In the center of the above photo, standing next to her husband Park Chung-hee, is Yuk Yeong-su, the first lady. Here are some photos of her from a book I found at Yonsei University Library a few years ago:








She has been described as being "widely revered," and the photos above may suggest why. On August 15, 1974, she accompanied her husband who was giving an Independence Day speech.



As you saw, Park's speech was interrupted by Mun Se-gwang, a Korean resident of Japan, who fired shots at him. Park ducked behind the bulletproof podium and as shots were exchanged between Mun and security, his wife was hit.

(Photo from here)

She died later that evening. Also killed by a ricocheting bullet was high school student Jang Bong-hwa. As can be seen in the video, her funeral was attended by thousands of people.


The western media often referred to Park as being 'tough', and in the video it's not hard to see why, as he stepped up and continued his speech.


What I like about the above photo is that it reminds you that, yes, he was not some mythical figure (despite the arguments of those who like to posthumously canonize or crucify him), but very human.

Other photos of Yuk Yeong-su, in her childhood or with her husband can be found here and here.

One wonders, however, what Park would have thought of people referring to him as "몸짱!"

See See Tee Vee

The Joongang Ilbo looks at how the use of CCTV and other information gathering systems threaten our privacy (but increase our security). I liked what the manager of Kookmin Bank's Fraud Detection System had to say:

“Kookmin Bank has all the details of its clients dating back to 1984.”

Interesting date.

Korea Beat also translated a Donga Ilbo article looking at the difference in the number of surveillance cameras found in Seoul's richer areas as compared to its poorer areas, with possible implications for the security of the poorer areas.

If you want to get in on the surveillance fun, use Daum's map service, click on 교통정보 (in the top right corner) and then look at the window that pops up; at the bottom of the window you can click on CCTV and choose from several different expressway cameras around the country.

The Mapo Apartments and Dohwa-dong in 1969-1970

Almost three years ago, I wrote a post showing how Dohwa-dong, near Mapo, had changed over the years. For those who have studied Seoul's history, it is best known for being the location of the Mapo Apartments, Korea's first apartment complex. Quite some time ago I received an email from Julia Welch, who wrote:

I am an American citizen who lived in the Mapo apartments with my 2 young boys in 1969 and 1970 when my then husband was serving in the US Army and stationed south at a missile base at Reno Hill. I have fond memories of my lovely neighbors. ... When you entered the complex we were in the first long building to the right on the second floor.

She was kind enough to send me several photos, and wrote, "One is hanging on the wall by my front door - it is our view out the children's window to the maze of traditional homes." Here are some of them.


Above is the view out the front window, which I made by stitching two photos together. Below is the same view in another season:


While those views might seem familiar to those who live in Seoul today, the photos taken from the other side of the apartment showcase a very different view than what we can see today:

View from the boys' bedroom.

Buddhist Temple

View from the kitchen.

View from the bathroom.

View from the back window.

The Mapo market, behind the apartments.

Thank you very much for the photos, Mrs. Welch! It's great to be able to see these scenes, especially in colour. The neighbourhood reminds of parts of this one, at least before it was destroyed.

As documented in my aforementioned post, this neighbourhood would, by the late 1980s, see numerous office towers sprout up along the main street.


The golmok neighbourhood surrounding it would soon be destroyed...


... a fate shared by the Mapo Apartments themselves. The area then became covered with villas and much taller apartments.


These apartments today tower over the landscape much as the Mapo Apartments dominated their surroundings in the 1960s. And here ends the latest installment of "Korea's apartment complex."

Too bad I don't have cable

Hip Korea, a documentary series which "examine[s] Korean culture through some of its top stars," premiers tonight (in Korea) at 9pm on the Discovery Channel with a look at Rain. Mark Russell does a much better job of explaining the series than the Korea Times, what with its calling the Discovery Channel "the world-renowned cable channel." (Why does the English language Korean media always have to write a panegyric to any foreign media outlet that gives good press to some aspect of Korea?) Hopefully I can find it on the internet before too long.

Here's the preview:

"Let's not forget the grudge over Hongdae!"

[Update - a very incorrect figure has been excised below]

"When you are alone, that is your cue."

It was four years ago last Thursday that 그것이 알고싶다's episode about English Teachers, titled "Is Korea their Paradise? Report on the Real Conditions of Blond-haired, Blue-eyed Teachers," was first broadcast, which helped shape the image of English teachers as unqualified, pot-smoking child molesters.

The show begins with a excerpts from 'Lucky Guy's "How to mollest your students [sic]" post (reprinted here) and continues with a dramatization of a male English teacher getting a kindergarten student alone and giving her an ill-intentioned massage.


Note that it then moves on to, "When you are in your place making dinner for them, spike the dinner. Yes, cook with rum or something," which is not connected (in the original post) with younger children at all. We then see - gasp! - foreign male-Korean female couples on the street in Hongdae:



We're also presented with this genius talking about his sex life:

Andy's screwed 50 girls this year, or 2-3 a week.
Clearly, he's not a math major.*

Later, we have some students who are interviewed about their teacher, 'Peter', who has them and two high school girls over for a lesson, then drinks with them, all shown in a re-enactment:


He gets one girl drunk and stoned and then they're discovered in the same bed.


Then the police raid his apartment, news crew in tow, and find a pipe. I am curious: what's to stop the guy from telling the camera crew to get the hell out of his apartment? The show goes on and on from there, with lots of hearsay and second-hand stories. With its varied look at the evils of English teachers (sex criminals, pot smokers, fake degrees, few working hours, high pay, seeing Korean women as being easy, being spoiled compared to migrant workers, etc etc) I still think it sets the standard for these kind of shows, but, also on Thursday, Mongdori posted a comedy show called 'Sin Hae-cheol's Damage,' which almost gives it a run for its money. This fake tabloid news show ( like an even sleazier 그것이 알고싶다) opens with the re-enactment of a Korean 22 year old woman being gang-raped by foreign English teachers, with, as you can see below, "Foreign teacher and club girl" emblazoned at the top of the screen for its entire running time.

Memories of an unforgettable gang rape!

I don't know who should be more offended by this - foreign teachers, or Korean women (in this case, 'club girls'). Since when is gang rape comedy? Well, since now apparently. And perhaps we should applaud such daring steps being taken (obviously by male writers) to broaden the horizons of Korean comedy and finally move away from the dominance of physical comedy. I might perhaps suggest that they use Chris Morris' mock news series Brasseye as a model (its Drugs and Paedogeddon! episodes are classics).

Seriously, though, it's interesting to look at the stereotypes found in these two shows, which portray white males with big noses as having only one thing on their minds: the defilement of Korean womanhood (with '그것이 알고싶다' making it clear that this category includes children (but not boys!)).


Of course, I've seen this kind of thing done with more panache by Korean artists using a different medium**:


Big nose, menacing, preying on innocent Korean women? Check. But where are the children?

Let's not forget the grudge over Sincheon!

Ah. There they are. Man, they don't just hold a grudge over Hongdae, but even Sinchon! (Actually, the Sincheon (North Korea) Massacre during the Korean War was blamed on the US, even though it was actually Korean neighbours who turned on each other and subjected each other to two months of horror.)

Then again, I suppose the pendulum swings both ways. CSI's episode about a double murder in Koreatown could, possibly, bring to mind the image of a certain Korean American who posed with (and used) handguns.







These images (two of which are only hypothetical) make sense in the context of the (very complicated) story, which involves a prostitute, gangsters, an ex-con and a boy with AIDS (all Korean-American) who is being used as a guinea pig by a pharmaceutical company (the white representative of which likely comes off as the most despicable character). Plastic surgery is also brought into the story, but it becomes unintentionally amusing due to a character's response to it. One of the CSIers finds surgical scars on a female corpse's eyes, and says something along the line of, "That's some pretty fancy plastic surgery for a prostitute," something akin to an American male corpse being examined in some other country and upon noticing that he's been circumcised, saying, "Wow, that's some pretty fancy surgery he's had." Anyways, while I could see how Koreans and Korean Americans might be displeased with some aspects of the episode, unlike 'Damage' or '그것이 알고싶다,' not every 'foreign' person on the show is portrayed as a criminal (in fact, one person who just got out of jail is arguably the most sympathetic character in the story). In 'Damage,' on the other hand, the foreigners are all gang rapists.

As I said, I'm not sure what I find more disturbing: portraying white English teachers in such a way (with 'Foreign teacher and club girl' emblazoned at the top of the screen for the entire show), or the fact that the (presumably male) writers of the show think so little of rape that they would go so far as to have rape scenes graphically re-enacted in what is meant to be a comedy. If they think that's funny, why not make a comedy out of this? I'm sure it would be just as hilarious to change the girl from a 22 year-old to a 14 year-old, the setting from present-day Hongdae to 1940s China, and the foreign rapists from English teachers to Japanese soldiers. Somehow (especially since a 'comfort women'-themed erotic photo spread in 2004 turned out to be a tad unpopular), I doubt "Comfort Station 17" would be quite as big as "꽃보다남자 (Boys Over Flowers)." Both shows would have something in common, however, considering the first episode of 꽃보다남자 ended with an attempted gang-rape:


This on a show watched regularly by elementary school students. Perhaps foreigners are making too big a deal of being associated with such a crime, one which may be more common in Korea[.] [films than in American films; a search of the Korean Film Archives "100 Korean Films" (from 1936 to 1996) turns up references to rape in 42 of them. [This is wrong: the figure is 9 out of 100] The Chosun Ilbo tells us that "Some 50 percent of teenage rape cases occurred in groups, compared to 30 percent for adults. Experts say that this tendency is higher in Korea than in other countries."

Consider also how exposed the female independence fighters are at the Seodaemun Prison Museum and the implications of that exposure.


Depicting women being treated in such a way (even if its by foreigners) in a comedy show unfortunately says quite a bit about how women are viewed here. There has been at least one other case, before the English Spectrum incident and 그것이 알고싶다, where foreigners have been (literally) whipping boys - at the hands of women - either to express anti-American feeling or sublimate frustration with Korean men and with being ranked so poorly on this list.

The question of why it is only white men who are targeted (and why its considered acceptable to target them) is talked about by Robert Koehler in this Seoul Podcast (about 44 minutes in) where he mentions that the murder of a 13 year old girl last March by a illegal Filipino migrant worker in Yangju brought to light the biases of the mainstream media, who refrained from reporting on it until local media reports led to it becoming an "internet sensation." As he describes "Korean-style political correctness,"

there is, at least within certain segments of the media, the feeling that guest workers, because they’re coming from Asia, because they’re coming from third world countries, are a disadvantaged class, while G.I.s and English teachers are a privileged class because they’re white and coming from western countries.

Another time I'll look at how groups opposed to illegal immigrants have been capitalizing on the murder of middle schooler Gang Su-hyeon and using her photo to promote their agenda. As for groups with similar agendas, at the Marmot's Hole, Robert translates a Weekly Kyunghyang Shinmun article by Lee Eun-ung of the “Citizens Group for Proper English Education” (or “Citizens Movement to Expel Illegal English Teachers”) otherwise known as anti-English Spectrum:

Foreign teachers with AIDS have actually been confirmed, too. In spring of 2007, our group received a tip from a woman who wanted help. A teacher from Australia threatened her, saying he’d had sex without a condom in southeast Asia and she should be careful of AIDS, too. The tip also said the teacher was loitering around her place, trying to terrify her. After this writer and others pursued him with the cooperation of relevant authorities, he was finally arrested by police in the capital region after living at a guest house in Seoul. It was learned that the teacher had before been fired for molesting a child and had been added to the Korea English Teacher Recruitment Association (KETRA) blacklist.

In the comments to this post by Roboseyo, Anti-English Spectrum member Liveswithpassion left 8 links to articles about English teachers molesting children (of which only three of them actually had stories about foreigners being arrested (here, here, and here)). Two others referred to 'A', the Australian teacher who 'threatened' his ex with AIDS, which was a bad breakup turned into news by an angry ex and xenophobic news media (with a little help from Anti-English Spectrum, according to Lee). 'A' is used by Lee as his sole example of "Foreign teachers with AIDS [who] have actually been confirmed" but does not say if he was ever tested, or if anyone saw the results. It might also be worth looking at the claim that "It was learned that [he] had before been fired for molesting a child." Actually, according to this article, a co-worker said that he poked high school-aged girls with paper (?) and read their palms, while in this article it says that the blacklist read, "he often puts his hand on the students’ bodies. It does not rise to the level of sexual harassment but it is absolutely inappropriate. Students and parents said they were suspicious of him.” Inapropiate, yes, but you certainly can't say he 'molest[ed] a child.' Unless you're anti-English Spectrum, I guess. To be sure, with his comment, "Many people were outraged... at the lewd clubs in front of Hongik University that degraded Korean women," Lee makes it clear that he has not forgotten the grudge over Hongdae, and is doing his part to keep the Han River free of ink. And if he or 'Damage' or '그것이 알고싶다' err on the side of exaggeration or gross generalization, remember - they're doing it for the children.

Do not forget the US imperialist wolves!***

We won't forget. And no one will forget Hongdae either. We can count on them for that.



* Well, if we're imagining a string of one night stands, that is.
** The posters are from North Korean Posters: The David Heather Collection.
***In his book Han Sorya and North Korean Literature, Brian Myers translates 'seungnyangi' as 'jackal'

Survey on English teachers in Seoul - Gyeonggi

I received an email from Francis Collins, a researcher in the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, who is currently conducting research on the lives of Foreign English Teachers in the Seoul Metropolitan Region. He is conducting an online survey that aims to gather information about the background and experiences of English teachers in Seoul, and the results will be used alongside findings from interviews that will be carried out in April and May this year. Those willing to give contact information upon completing the survey will go into a draw for an Apple Ipod Nano, to be drawn at the completion of the survey.

Are you a foreign English teacher working/living in Seoul or the surrounding areas (Incheon, Gyeonggi Province)? Participate in research on the lives of English teachers in Seoul, complete a short 15 minute survey and go in the draw to win an Apple Ipod Nano.

The survey is here. If you have any questions, he can be contacted at ariflc [at] nus.edu.sg

If you meet those criteria and can spare 10 - 15 minutes, give the man a hand.

March of the Androids*

Via the Chosun Ilbo, we see the android EveR (after her plastic surgery), along with two pint-sized newer-generation androids. All I have to say to the Korean music industry is: Oh come on, as if you really think we don't know. As if anyone was going to believe Big Bang or Sweetie or the Wondergirls were real.

Accidently-leaked Sohee prototype advertisement.

The music just keeps getting more robotic and electronic. It's a sign. It won't be long now before they use their teenage fans as their own personal armies. Here is one unpopular singer's personal army out front of SBS studio in Gayang-dong.


Once they've taken over, everyone under 30 will find the noise they make to be appealing, government agencies will work with them to 'ban' songs in order to gain them more attention, people from all walks of life will be captivated by their robotic moves and will video themselves performing them, and listeners will lose their ability to judge good music from bad. I think this could start to happen any day now. Don't say I didn't warn you.


*I thought about calling the post "February of the Androids," but didn't.

A view of the “women’s self-offering corps” - in 1942

I just read Gord Sellar's short story "Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands" (as well as listened to the podcast/audiobook of "Dhuluma No More" (it starts at 44:00)), and I have to say that they are both well worth your time. I enjoyed "Dhuluma" a lot, but I'm responding here more to Gord's well-written piece putting "Cai and Her Ten Thousand Husbands" into context. It becomes clear very quickly, when reading the story, that it is about the "Comfort Women." There are a few paragraphs which refer to the plight of these girls in Donald Clark's Living Dangerously in Korea, The Western Experience 1900-1950 which I'd previously bookmarked, and which his post has prompted me to transcribe.

In Kanggye, in the very northwest of Korea, missionary Lillian Ross ran a Bible institute which had classes for local men and women. She wrote, in 1937, of one of her graduates:

Her younger daughter (17 years) was sold to a yorichip (roadside restaurant) by her husband. She did not know better than to go and did not even notify her mother for some months. Now she is kept here in town. She has been sparing her spare time weeping at her mother’s. The mother is distracted. The price of the girl has gone from ¥100, which the husband received, to ¥230. The police doctor [has] sent her to the hospital and already the price is ¥240. [I received] ¥60 from the US recently. The mother thinks she can raise ¥60 by selling her sewing machine. I do not have the [funds] even to advance [the rest]. [pg 178]

The above quote goes to illustrate the way girls could be sold, something that was occurring long before the joshi teishintai, or the “women’s self-offering corps,” was established. Clark also describes the observations of Ethel Underwood, writing that, "In her view, recruitment for military brothels was an extension of the established business of prostitution that preyed on girls from poor Japanese families as well as from Korea." He then presents an excerpt of Ethel Underwood’s October 1942 unpublished (due to wartime censorship) report titled “The Darkest Blot in Korea”:

Agents deliver the girl to the crowded dormitory of the employment agency. From here they are sold and resold to factories, hotels, inns, and private homes. The younger girls are taught how to serve food and drink, how to dress and comb their hair, then they are sold to “cafes” or “drink houses,” [and] resold at rising prices until the original 100 yen becomes 200 yen, 300 yen, or sometimes 1,000 yen or more. Girls who from infancy have learned submission to men are now taught to please them. At any stage from the mother’s door to the third or fourth sale the girl may be raped, “broken in,” “prepared” for commercialized vice. The totals are appalling. During the one month of March 1940, 1,500 Korean girls around the age of fourteen were taken through the one port of Antung into Manchuria and northern China. Parties of ten to twenty little pre-adolescent girls were constantly seen being taken into police stations for identification, for travel permits, medical examinations, [etc.]. Older girls are not wanted. “They fight too much if they are not broken in before puberty.” Police regulations make the tracing of girls difficult…

Sometimes a tearful mother goes on a journey and returns with a pitiful little body, sick and defeated, disillusioned and disgraced. More often nothing is ever heard of the little girl. But the dives of Mukden, Peking, Shanghai, and the barracks of Nanking, Hong Kong and now Manila have competent doctors to throw out any girl dangerously diseased. Koreans hear, shudder, and are ashamed. They revile and hate their rulers and despise them. Thousands of Korean leaders from schools and churches, newspapers and farms [who have been] thrown into jails these last few years report that the only conversation of the police force is of drink, and of the lustful delight of girls from inns and cafes, and from the registered brothels. Brutal by day and bestial by night, the policeman is both hated and despised. [Pg 200]

There's little I feel like adding to that disturbing picture. Unfortunately, the hatred she speaks of would find new outlets in the late 1940s, and it was in that maelstrom that Ethel Underwood was killed in her own house after communist assassins broke in trying to kill one of her guests.

Standing up to emperors and dictators

Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan and Park Chung-hee

Since his passing on February 16, much has been written about Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, a man I knew far too little about.

The Joongang Ilbo has a lengthy look at his life here, and looks at the different people paying their respects at Myeongdong Cathedral here, while Brother Anthony of Taize remembers the Cardinal here. At the bottom of that article we see photos of Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung before the Cardinal's coffin; Chun Doo-hwan also paid his respects. It should not surprise regular readers of this blog that I found this article to be very interesting.

Archbishop Yoon Gong-hee, who once headed the Gwangju archbishopric, recalled yesterday that on May 23, 1980, he received a letter from the cardinal through a chaplain, without the knowledge of the military, which had blocked all roads and communications in and around the southwestern city.

"I am very concerned that so many people were either injured or dead. I know it is a very difficult time, but I hope everything will end peacefully,'' Kim wrote. Alongside the letter was 10 million won in cash.

"People criticizing the government were arrested on rebellion charges. The cardinal didn't write at length or specifically, but people in Gwangju were more than impressed to have received such a consoling message during such a turbulent time from the cardinal,'' Yoon said. The money was used to treat victims, Yoon said.

The late Cardinal had always showed compassion for Gwangju, and when Pope John Paul Ⅱvisited Korea in 1984, Kim allegedly advised him to visit Gwangju first. The pope indeed started his visit in the city, walking along Geumnam road and Provincial Office square, where the military suppressed and even killed citizens advocating democracy. He then moved to the Mudeung Stadium to hold his first mass.

Kim expressed his sympathy for Gwangju several times. ``It was the hardest moment of my life. The case wasn't properly promoted. I thought I did all I could but it didn't work. It left so many people hurt and wounded,'' he said in interviews later on.

The article also tells us that, "It was officially tallied that 240 people were killed, with 409 missing and thousands injured." Those figures are certainly news to me, but I digress. Here are several photos of the Cardinal throughout his life. The first photo is of him when he was attending Dongsung Commercial School, about which more is said here:

Kim Sou-hwan was deeply distressed. The question on the test paper for an ethics class read, “Write down how you feel about becoming an honored citizen of an imperial state mandated by the Emperor.”

The year was 1940, during Japan’s colonial rule over Korea (1910-1945), and Kim was a senior at Dongsung Commercial School (now Dongsung High School) in Jongno, central Seoul.

Kim spent a good hour agonizing over the test item, until he finally wrote, “I am not a citizen of an imperial state. Thus, I don’t have anything to say.” After the examiners checked his paper, Kim was taken to the principal’s office, where he was clapped around the face and told he would never be a priest. He was too subversive, he was told.

It seems that a great many people are glad that the principal's prediction was wrong.

May he rest in peace.

Vietnam, Korea's 'womb colony?'

In September 2007, the Joongang Ilbo posted a lengthy article looking at the problems foreign wives imported from Southeast Asia face in Korea. It began with this story:

Nlan [, a 24-year old Vietnamese woman,] was living with her parents near Ho Chi Minh City after graduating from high school when she first met her husband through a broker. She was told that he had been divorced once and wanted to start a new family. His past didn’t bother her, so they soon married, and Nlan became pregnant. Shortly after the delivery of her first child, however, her husband suddenly asked her to send their baby to his ex-wife.

“My husband tried to convince me by saying that we could have another baby, but his ex-wife couldn’t,” Nlan said. “He said she lives a lonely life now.” She reluctantly agreed, and moved on with her life.

After giving up her baby to her husband’s ex-wife, Nlan gave birth to her second child in 2005. Soon, however, her husband suggested that they also send their second child to his ex-wife. When Nlan came home from the hospital, she discovered her second child was gone. Shortly after the incident, her husband asked for a divorce.

"I was too young and naive at that time,” Nlan said. “I had no friends or family whom I could ask for help. And I didn't speak Korean at all. When my husband’s attitude turned cold, I could do nothing except sign the divorce contract.”

After divorcing him, she found that her husband had reunited with his ex-wife with Nlan’s children. Nlan then realized that she was used as a surrogate mother for his husband’s marriage because his ex-wife was barren. Now she is pursuing a legal suit against him.

Notice that that article was published about two years after her second child was born. Yesterday, the Korea Times published an update:

A court rejected a Vietnamese woman's request Monday for the custody of her biological children who she had with a Korean husband. The Seoul Family Court cited the "children's lack of awareness'' of her as their mother as its primary reasoning. The 26-year-old married to a divorced Korean man in his 50s in August 2003 and gave birth to two daughters in the following two years.

But, immediately after the birth of the two children, they were sent to the husband's former Korean wife. The Korean woman, now recognized by the children as their mother, has nurtured them since then. [...] Just days after the immigrant wife delivered the second child, the husband abruptly divorced her and began to live with his former Korean wife. The Vietnamese woman filed a suit in a bid to secure custody of the children, which is usually granted to the father for financial reasons.

The reason the man sent the children to live with his former wife has not yet been confirmed, with those involved in the case unavailable for comment. The court also refused to elaborate, saying, "It was not the point of the case.'' [...] The biological mother reportedly claimed during court proceedings that the Korean used her as a "surrogate mother,'' which is strictly banned in South Korea. It remains uncertain whether or not the Korean woman is sterile.

The Vietnamese woman now lives in a rundown house in Seoul, and is said to be barely surviving by working at a sewing factory. Although failing to gain custody, the court granted her visitation rights with the children one day per week in order to guarantee her basic right as biological mother.

Actually, according to this Ohmynews (or this Hankyoreh) article, she gets to visit her children at her ex-husband's house the third Saturday of every month from 2pm to 6pm. A total of 48 hours for the year. Is that Korea's "basic right" for biological mothers?

"During the proceedings, we gave her a chance to meet the babies. But they did not recognize her as their mother at all,'' the court spokesman said. "Given overall conditions, we decided to give custody to their father but enabled her to meet them on a regular basis for humanitarian concerns.''

The former husband has appealed the case to overturn the court's decision to grant her the right to meet the children. The lawyer for the migrant woman was cautious in commenting on the case for fear that media exposure may adversely affect her and further anger her former husband who may withholds the children from her.

"The court allowed the meeting, but it doesn't necessarily mean the meeting will be realized any time soon,'' the lawyer told The Korea Times. "If the former husband refuses, it's impossible for her to meet them.''

So you mean the court can't do anything to enforce the visitation rights given to her? I suppose when her only choice is to go over to her ex-husband's house to see them, it would be too difficult to enforce, especially seeing how court decisions are little respected here anyway (how many chaebol owners and political cronies and sons of his former elementary school classmates will the president pardon this year?).

The lawyer added another suit for alimony is underway, with its conclusion expected by the first half of the year.

I really have to wonder how successful that will be, especially if the court can't really enforce it (though the courts may have gotten more teeth in enforcing child support). The article ends with our immigration factoid for the day:

The Korea Immigration Office estimated the number of Korean-Vietnamese couples here to be 27,092 last year, the third largest international marriage group.

This woman's case really stood out when I first read about it over a year ago, and I remembered it as soon as I read this most recent article. While the first response is to reading it is obviously going to be like these ones - anger and disgust - the question remains as to what legally could be done. She agreed to the divorce, unfortunately, and women in Korea - as in women who are Korean citizens - seem to regularly get the shit end of the stick in divorce cases, so it's hard to be optimistic about what hope there is for a foreigner who also doesn't speak the language (or didn't when this mess began). On top of all of this, as this article notes (note that it is over two years old), there are other problems:

According to the law, selling eggs is illegal, but there are no regulations for surrogate mothers. That is why the industry has no problems luring cash-strapped young women. Surrogate mothers are paid W30-40 million (US$1=W956), while egg donors get W3-4 million.

The article begins by looking at messages left at internet portals written by people looking for surrogate mothers. If the law hasn't changed, then I don't know legally what can be done, other than giving her visitation rights and alimony, as the court has a point - the children don't even really know her. The laws as they exist now may not have taken such a situation into account.

Of course, you had to love the spin that was put on the facts mentioned above in that article:

One result has been that more and more Japanese infertile Japanese women seek Korean surrogates. In 2003, Japan completely banned surrogate pregnancies and industry brokering.[...]

Grand National Party lawmaker Bahk Jae-wan on Monday published Ministry of Health and Welfare materials which say there are 13 Internet groups on major domestic portal sites related to surrogate mothering, 65 related ads, and 2,295 users registered to the groups. “With the lax regulations on surrogate pregnancies in Korea, the number of Japanese finding surrogate mothers here is rising. My concern is that we could be reduced to Japan’s womb colony.”

One hopes that this perverse case, which could set a precedent for turning Vietnam into Korea's 'womb colony' leads to changes in the laws so that should this happen again, the courts will be able to punish it. Let this opportunity not be wasted.

It's ironic that the first Korean film to get really noticed overseas, Im Kwon-taek's 1987 film The Surrogate Women, was also about a young surrogate mother, and highlighted how unfair and how harsh the preference for a son - for continuing the bloodline - could be for Korean women. One difference was, that though the girl in the movie knew what her role was from the beginning (but later thought she could go beyond that role), this woman thought the opposite - that she was going to give birth to and raise her own children. As Tony Rayns writes of the film,

Set towards the end of the Yi Dynasty (the late 19h century in the Western calendar), Surrogate Mother uses a historical setting to pinpoint the roots of problems which remain endemic in Korean culture. Im’s specific target is the principle of male lineage, strong in all Confucian societies but still capable of ruining lives in present-day Korea.

That's very true.

Busan through the years

[Update: William Broughton, the first westerner to visit Busan, is looked at here]

Over at Hunjangûi karûch'im, Antti has posted links to several sets of photos he's recently uploaded to flickr, including many photos taken in Busan two years ago. It reminded me of a handful I took there in 2001, from the Commodore Hotel (which can be seen in this photo):

Looking Northwest

Looking Northeast, towards the harbor

It reminds me that I've actually only been there once, and that I really need to go back. With its colourful houses climbing the hills, it looks quite different from any other Korean city (though perhaps they've all been replaced with apartment blocks by now).

One of the things that is quite different about it is the fact that it was the site of a Japanese colony for about 200 years before the 1876 Treaty of Ganghwa. In this 1872 map, to the west of the island of Yeongdo, you can see the Choryang Waegwan (along with a small Korean settlement at the north end of the bay, and the walled town of Dongnae inland). This walled trading post was built in 1678 (with severe punishment meted out by the Joseon government to Koreans who dared enter it). More information about the Waegwan can be found at this site (with its many maps). The compound contained Yongdusan, which Busan Tower sits atop today. At the bottom of this map, you can see piers or breakwaters; perhaps that's what is seen below in a photo said to be taken January 16, 1876, as the Imperial Japanese Navy headed for Ganghwa-do to negotiate a treaty with Korea (it, and other pictures, came from here):


After the Treaty of Ganghwa, Busan was turned into one of the first treaty ports, and it was from this waegwan that the Japanese settlement in Busan began to spread. Of course, Japan's opening of the area into a trading port caused it to grow quickly as both Japanese and Koreans moved into the area. A 1912 map of the city is here, and a 1946 map is here.

To get a sense of the city's early development, here is a description of Busan in December 1883, by Percival Lowell in the book Choson, Land of the Morning Calm (which can be found here):

Turning still, the steamer suddenly brings into view a little knoll, at whose base are grouped some score of houses. They are not so far off but that a glance shows them to be not Korean, but Japanese. It is the Japanese colony of Fusan. It is in some respects a remarkable colony. In the first place, it is the only one that the Japanese have ever had. The spirit of trade — the great colonizing motive-power — is not a strong element in the Japanese character; the Chinese are the English of the far-East. Secondly, it is historic. For centuries it has been a bit of transplanted Japan. Ever since the invasion of the peninsula in 1592, the Japanese have held it almost without a break; it has been a little fortress by itself in an alien land. Yet, though it has lived amidst Korean manners and customs for so long, it has not been in the least affected by them: it is still Japan. Nor have the Koreans, in their turn, been leavened by it. The natives of the neighborhood, impelled a little by the desire to trade, and more by the curiosity for foreign sights, visit it by day, but they return at night to their own town. The only thing they have deigned to acquire has been some knowledge of the Japanese language; so that to-day interpreters from Korean into Japanese are either men from the neighborhood of Fusan or else returned refugees.

The Korean town of Pusan lies about two miles away, round the bay. When you learn to distinguish the thatched roofs of the houses from the brown of the withered grass, it can just be made out from the steamer's anchorage. From Fusan a road leads over the seaward slopes of the hills to it, and you are first made aware of its existence by seeing a procession of distant ghosts slowly winding their way along this path. The white dresses of the Koreans, and their slow decorous movements, lend themselves involuntarily to such spiritualistic hallucination.

It's interesting that he makes a distinction between Fusan (the Japanese settlement) and Pusan (the Korean settlement). They would, of course, merge as the years went by. As this recent essay* points out, the Japanese expanded their concession (which was not much larger than the waegwan) by asking for land for a graveyard (to the north), for a coaling station (on Yeongdo) and by reclaiming land.

Looking South: Yeongdo, left, Yongdusan, right. Undated.

The Japanese population of Busan went from 80 in 1876, to 24,000 by 1910 (to, perhaps, 0 after 1945). Of course, Koreans returning from factories in northern Korea, from Japan, and from Manchuria would help take their place - as would the hundreds of thousands of refugees who streamed into Busan during the Korean War.

*Actually, the Autumn 2008 issue of Korea Journal, titled Colonial Modernity and the Making of Modern Korean Cities, has articles about Seoul, Busan, Daegu and Mokpo. They can all be read online.

Korean Patterns

Over at the Marmot's Hole the other day, Robert posted a photo essay looking at the Southern Presbyterian missionary sites of Kwangju. Among the churches, schools and houses are photos of a graveyard, including the grave of Margaret Bell, who died in a car accident on March 26, 1919. According to Donald Clark's Living Dangerously in Korea, The Western Experience 1900-1950, (which can be found here), in that same accident Paul Sackett Crane, a missionary from Mokpo, who had imported the car through Incheon, also died. I couldn't help noticing that there is also a photo of the grave of Elizabeth Letitia Crane (1917-1918) and wondered if perhaps Paul Sackett Crane was her father, before remembering that the author of the book Korean Patterns, published in the late 1960s, was Paul Shields Crane. And then the searching began.

As I found out here, in a memorial written after his death in 2005, Paul Shields Crane was born in the U.S. on May 2, 1919, and as his son relates in an interview here,

He missed being born in Korea by six months: he was born in the US while his parents were home on a leave. They were here before, so he was raised during the Japanese colonial time and he spent most of his youth in Suncheon and went to high school in Pyongyang where his father was a teacher in the Presbyterian seminary. And then he went back to the US for college and medical school and during that time it was the end of the colonial period in World War II. He came back in 1947 [.]

He was born to Dr. John Curtis Crane and Florence Hedelston Crane, and as they were in Korea before his birth, I'd imagine they were knew the other Crane family (perhaps they were related?), but have no idea which family the infant Elizabeth Letitia Crane was born into. His parents were based in Suncheon, and Donald Clark's book also describes the missionaries' summer retreat in Jirisan, writing that "The children learned to collect wild flowers by the trails, and there are oldsters who still remember helping Florence Crane collect flowers for her book Flowers and Folklore From Far Korea" (I love the cover design).

John and Florence Crane are better-known for running the Presbyterian missionary station in Suncheon, which was written about in coverage of the Yosu-Suncheon Uprising in October, 1948 (about which more can be found here). As Time Magazine reported,

U.S. Lieuts. Stewart M. Greenbaum and Gordon Mohr, Army observers in Sunchon, narrowly escaped death. The rebel sergeant assigned to kill them was an old friend, who had drunk beer with them in their billet many times. He took the two officers into a field, fired into the ground and then led them to the Presbyterian Mission of Dr. John Curtis Crane, who was barricaded in with his wife and four other missionaries.

From one of the doctor's shirts and a few colored rags the ladies made a 16-star, eleven-stripe U.S. flag and put it up. The rebels began pounding at the compound gate, yelling: "Let's kill the Americans!" Suddenly one shouted: "No, no, not them; they are my friends." It was the lieutenants' friend, the sergeant. The rebels went away.

Gordon Mohr, who 'narrowly escaped death," relates a much more brutal and gruesome tale of his experiences in Suncheon here, though I should warn that it's filled with accounts of torture, murder, mutilation and rape (often all taking place at the same time, with too much of it involving children). Not to doubt his account, but this account of his life (which mentions his experiences in the Korean War) also describes how he came to realize that the Jews were funding the communists to take over the world, with examples of his essays to be found here. Ahem.

By the time of Yeosu-Suncheon, Paul Crane had returned to Korea and rebuilt and expanded a hospital in Jeonju. This interesting interview with Howard Macdougall, a doctor assigned to Korea during the American occupation period who worked in public health, looks at his association with Crane at that time (it's halfway down the page, or do a page search for 'Korea'). As the memorial tells us, "A World War II veteran, Crane was recalled to military service and served in Korea as the chief of surgery at the 121st Evacuation Hospital and later as the commanding officer of the M.A.S.H. unit immortalized in the hit television series, M*A*S*H." A 1953 Time article describes his work in Jeonju and mentions that his father father was now living in Mississippi. His work in Jeonju is described (via the Jeonju Hub) in this interview with his son, Dr. James Crane, during a recent visit to Korea (Part 1, 2).



The memorial also mentions that "[d]uring his years in Korea, he was a regular contributor to the “Thoughts of the Times” column in the Korea Times newspaper." Before leaving Korea in 1969, Crane wrote, in 1967, a book titled Korean Patterns, which attempts to explain the 'Korean mind' and society to foreigners coming to the country for the first time. A contemporary review of it is here, while criticism of it as being 'orientalist' and 'embarrassing' for the R.A.S., who chose not to reprint in in 1997, are looked at here. I picked up my copy (published in 1999) at Kyobo Bookstore, and it now has a new preface explaining its use in learning about "the attitudes of yesteryear." Much has changed in Korea since it was first published, both materially and socially, and so have many of the attitudes and practices mentioned in the book. But there are still vestiges that remain, and it's interesting to see where they come from. Of course, some things haven't changed much at all, as this illustration from the book reveals:

"Multicultural"

The Korea Herald's expat living section has a (translated) article written by a Grade 6 student whose mother is Japanese. Some excerpts:

Lately, I have been hearing people refer to my family as being "multicultural," but my family is just an ordinary family like any other. Up until now, there haven't been many cases where I have experienced particular difficulties due to the fact that my mother is Japanese. So why is there all of a sudden so much interest in differentiating between "normal" families and "multicultural" families?[...]

There are many kids who don't even know what a multicultural family is. When my teacher tried to explain the term "multicultural family" to the class, I felt really uncomfortable. Is there something unusual about multicultural families? I still don't get it. What makes me so special?[...]

I don't know whether I want to call my family "multicultural." But what I do know is that I want to work really hard and become a respectable person so that I can make people see that not only is our family not abnormal, but also that multicultural families are valuable to society and can help the world progress.

The article reminds me of an adult student I taught last summer. He traveled in Canada several years ago (working on farms in B.C.)(no, not those kind of farms) and that was where he met his future wife. The first time I met him he mentioned he was going to Japan for a vacation, and that he had been there many times, before finally revealing that his wife was Japanese, and he and his family were heading to Japan to visit his in-laws. It was interesting as he talked about the challenges his wife faced (similar to those of the girl's mother in the above article), especially regarding language. She spoke Korean fairly well, he said, but sometimes she would call him from the bank, say, to get his help translating something. He then looked at me and said, "I guess it must be difficult for you here sometimes, too."

One of the funnier moments was when another student in the class, a university student, asked him if his future in-laws opposed their marriage (they being Japanese and he being Korean, and all.) He replied, "My wife's parents didn't care. It was my parents who didn't want me to marry her." Somehow, I don't think that was the answer the other student was expecting.

While I imagine the children of most Japanese-Korean unions wouldn't stand out, acceptance is a slow process for those who do. The article linked to here also looks at such attitudes.

One of the first books published about a 'multicultural' family in Korea was Agnes Davis Kim's "I married a Korean," about which I've written more here (and scans of the illustrations from the book and information in Korean can be found here).

Barging in

The Joongang Ilbo has an article about the documentary "Old Partner", or '워낭소리':

“Old Partner,” a low-budget documentary about the 30-year friendship between a farming couple in their 80s and a loyal cow, attracted 305,000 viewers from Jan. 15 to Feb. 10, a record in Korea for an independent film. The movie was originally screened in just seven cinemas on its release date. But word spread quickly among film lovers, and it is now showing in over 100 movie theaters nationwide.

Actually, this Korea Times article has more information on the movie and how it was made; The Joongang article is about how the movie's success has affected the lives of the couple seen in the film:

Despite the unexpected popularity of the movie, the elderly couple have complained to the movie crew that their lives have been turned upside down. They say they are inundated with calls and requests from the media and ordinary viewers who want to meet and talk. [...]

Some television network producers have already visited and filmed the couple’s village without advance permission. Some even went inside their house although the couple strongly resisted, according to a producer of the movie. The two live in a small hilly village of 40 in Bonghwa county, North Gyeongsang Province.

That reporters "went inside their house although the couple strongly resisted" reminds of a story Oranckay told about the actions of a rather unscrupulous reporter in the media blitz that followed Kim Sun-il's beheading in Iraq in June of 2004 (from the wayback machine - scroll down to July 5, 2004)

Just heard from a very reliable source that the above picture of Kim Seon Il, used repeatedly in the media and at street protests, was stolen from his family's home by a reporter when journalists stormed the living room to take pictures like this. It has been used repeatedly for things like this and later things like this.

I have no way to confirm if the story is true or not, but at the very least, it is believed to be true by many journalists covering the whole situation, particularly from Busan where his family resides.

The reporter, btw, is said to work for a newspaper with national circulation, one that also publishes a daily in English. Exclude the Joongang and figure it out yourself.

[I removed a few dead links; here are photos taken at his family's home at the time: 1 2 3]

Unprofessionalism by many reporters has been looked at before (here and here, for example), but stealing photos from a grieving family and pushing into an elderly couple's house really do take the cake!

Anyways, the movie can be seen at Indiespace (at the Joongang Theatre in Myeongdong). A map is here, and the schedule is here. Both articles say that the movie is being shown with English subtitles.

Off to the skating rink

[Update - via Brian in Jeollanam-do, we have this fine example of Kim Yu-na-inspired self-congratulatory 'our-minjok-share-the-same-pure-bloodline' nationalist drivel. "The miracles of economic development and democratization are embodied in the movements of Kim Yu-na," indeed.]


After winning the Four Continents championships on the weekend, the media is gushing about Kim Yu-na, and so is Roboseyo - go read his post about her. She's come a long way from these days (do go read that four-year-old article):

Yu-na can credit her success to her parents, who have spared no expense for her career. Her monthly training costs average more than 2 million won, which includes renting the Gwacheon ice rink and hiring instructors. When she takes part in an international competition, it’s at the family’s expense. But it is overseas training that truly costs a fortune. To create her program, Yu-na and her mother have gone abroad and paid huge sums to hire professionals such as choreographers.

Nowadays, as the Korea Times reports, Kim doesn't have to worry so much, seeing as

a rough tally of Kim's already sealed endorsements, sponsorships and cash prizes show that her total income this year will probably hover between eight to 10 billion won, more than double the amount she raked in last year.

It's nice to see that the effort and money she and her parents put into her training has paid off so well, and it's worth noting that she has donated millions of won to charity over the past few years, as noted here and here. A Chosun Ilbo article asks:

Why do businesses like Kim? A staffer with Cheil Worldwide said, "When things are difficult, people want to hear hopeful news. For example, Pak Se-ri drew attention in the financial crisis in 1997 and national football coach Guus Hiddink became popular during the credit card crisis in 2002. As gloomy news about the recession pour out, consumers are becoming frenzied about Kim as a symbol of hope."

They aren't the only ones. Yesterday former GNP leader Park Geun-hye posted a picture of herself as a child on skates on her Cyworld homepage (yes, that's her pictured above, not Kim Yu-na) and wrote about the hope and courage that Kim's victory has brought, like a new spring, to the nation. Even politicians/daughters of former dictators aren't immune from Kim Yu-na's power. I found another photo of her at Dongdaemun Ice Rink in the 1960s, along with her sister and her mother:


And just in case you thought having a skating rink next to city hall was a new idea, it's not:


The rink is actually on the pond inside Deoksugung. For a decade or so in the '60s there was no high wall around that palace. Here's another view from 1958:


It was also possible to go skating on the Han River near the Han River Bridge:



Last but not least is the ice-rink at Changgyeongung palace:

He shoots! He SCORES!!

Needless to say, the way palaces are treated has changed quite a bit (though of course Changgyeonggung had been turned into a zoo and park by the Japanese). The last four photos are from Seoul Through Pictures Volume 3; I'm not sure about the sources of the other two.

More on the Equal Checks for All Campaign

I posted the other day on media reaction to ATEK's "Equal Checks for All Campaign."

I've written about the history of scapegoating English teachers before, and it's worth noting that the introduction of the new E2 visa rules was due to xenophobic (and overblown) media portrayals of white foreign English instructors, which really started after the English Spectrum incident 4 years ago when 'white foreign teacher' became associated with "sexual harassment" (even though, as Korea Beat points out, the photos posted at English Spectrum of a sexy costume party attended by Foreign men and Korean women pale in comparison to those found in the adults only online section of the Chosun Ilbo). One of the immediate results of this controversy was the creation of the Anti-English Spectrum Cafe, which is dedicated to ridding Korea of 'low quality' teachers, while another highlight of the media/netizen frenzy in early 2005 was 그것이 알고싶다's episode about English Teachers, titled "Is Korea their Paradise? Report on the Real Conditions of Blond-haired, Blue-eyed Teachers," which began with a dramatization of a male English teacher molesting a kindergarten student (If you were to do a similar style hatchet job on Korean students in America, it would start out, "Cho Seung-hui killed more than 30 American students, and just recently a Korean crime ring was busted in Virginia - is America their paradise of guns and easy money laundering?"). Needless to say, the show made people angry.

After a former English teacher in Korea, Christopher Neil, was arrested for sex crimes against children in Thailand in October 2007, the Korean Immigration Service announced that it would change the rules for obtaining E2 visas, and the language it used might have sounded familiar (edited from this translation):

The Korean Government will prevent illegal activities by verifying requirements of native English teacher and tighten their non-immigrant status [...] [and will] eradicate illegal activities of native English teachers who are causing social problems such as ineligible lectures, taking drugs and sex crimes. English teachers, who disturb social order during their staying in Korea such as illegal teaching, taking drugs and sex crimes, will be banned from entering South Korea.[...] [We will] prevent illegal English teaching activities and the taking of drugs and sexual harassment of English teachers, [...] teachers who disrupt the social order by taking drugs, committing sexual harassment and alcohol intoxication.

Is it just me, or does such language seem to reflect the almost three years of xenophobic media reports equating white male English instructors with sexual misconduct, drug use, AIDS and even lawlessness? The release by immigration ended with this:

It is expected the uneasiness of citizens incurred from ineligible English teachers will be mitigated [...] thanks to this measure on the native English teachers by the Ministry of Justice.

It might be worth asking who created such uneasiness in the first place. Not that laws haven't been broken by English teachers, of course, but things were so blown out of proportion that my boss could mention in 2006 that there had been 'many' sexual 'problems' and crimes recently due to English teachers. When I asked for examples, none were forthcoming. What's interesting about the Korean Immigration Service's E-2 Visa Policy Memo (which mandates the drug and HIV checks) is that, according to an ATEK statement,

This Policy Memo was not created by Presidential Decree. It did not go through the formal regulation approval process (which is why it is called a "policy memo," and not an "enforcement ordinance" or "regulation"). The Korean Immigration Service acted independently and without oversight in adopting these rules, which are at odds with both domestic and international law.

I do find it rather ironic that in order to combat the spectre of English teacher crime - which certainly didn't exist to the extent that the media (or Immigration) made it out to be, and which had little basis in fact, Immigration created rules that have no legal basis - phantom rules for phantom crime.

Still, Immigration does not treat them as such, and English teachers are bound by them. ATEK is asking that all foreigners applying for teaching jobs to be treated equally. If people applying for teaching visas (E1 and E2) have to submit criminal record tests and health/drug tests, then people who already have (or are eligible to get) F-2 or F-4 visas who want to teach in Korea should have to submit them as well before they can get teaching jobs. I think focussing on this question of equality between the different visa categories is a good way to frame the issue, as is the question of protecting children (the words 'children' and 'students' were not mentioned once in the Immigration notice quoted above).

The rest of this post is from an ATEK announcement I received yesterday, which begins by quoting the Joongang Ilbo article:

"The current drug tests, HIV tests and criminal background checks are discriminatory," said Tony Hellmann, ATEK's communications director. "They reflect a mindset that foreign teachers are potentially dangerous because they are foreign."

"ATEK cares deeply about the protection of Korea's children," he added. "Measures such as drug testing, which are designed to ensure that only the highest quality teachers work in Korea, should be supported, but when such measures are applied only to some groups of teachers and not others, their ability to protect children is compromised. ATEK supports a single standard applied to all who teach children - for the protection of all children."

The Human Rights Commission has an English language site with an online complaint form. They investigate all complaints filed and the United Nations Committee on the Ending of All Forms of Racial Discrimination monitors the number of complaints. Large numbers of complaints will show the UN that there is a problem here. The Korean government routinely tells the UN that foreigners are satisfied with the requirements, because there are never any complaints! We urge all teachers to exercise the rights granted them under the Korean constitution, and fill out the online form. It takes only five minutes and the Commission does not share your name or identifying information with any other government agencies. Your complaint is anonymously investigated.

ATEK urges all teachers to exercise their Korean constitutionally-guaranteed rights and file an online complaint with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea.

ATEK has prepared instructions for filling out the form, and some suggested things you can say. You can find the instructions on their website. Please be a part of the first time the non-citizen teaching community has come together to make our voices heard. Make yours heard too.

Take care

Remember, after you've had a few too many drinks, do be sure to watch your step on the subway platform. A gentleman at Gyesan Station in Incheon Wednesday night didn't, but was lucky that there were lots of sober (and courageous) people around, as can be seen in this video. He apparently is ok now.

Photo from here.

I couldn't help but remember how the main character in Barking Dogs Never Bite (The Host director Bong Joon-ho's first film) manages to find an opening for a teaching position at a university: The professor who held the position previously went out drinking one night and then, on his way home, leaned forward at the edge of the subway platform to throw up...


... and the next day his position was available. If you haven't seen it, it's a great black comedy.

Perhaps I should stick to more serious topics though, like middle school graduation.

'Necessary' requirements

[Update at bottom]

ATEK's interview with Kyunghee University Law School associate professor Benjamin Wagner - published at the Marmot's Hole - is quite interesting, if you haven't read it yet. His actions have attracted the attention of the Korea Times ("Foreign Teachers Fight 'Discrimination'; Justice Ministry Discounts the Claim"), and the Joongang Ilbo ("Visa rules for foreign English teachers challenged"), who tell us that

A law professor filed a report with the National Human Rights Commission yesterday asserting that health and criminal checks required of native English language teachers entering Korea are discriminatory.

It's interesting to note that, at the moment (will the Herald get on board?) there are as many English language articles about this as there are Korean language articles - one from Hanguk Gyeongje and one from Yonhap. Funny how the Canadian teacher accused of molesting three elementary school students was reported by 5 news outlets in Korean, but this garners only 2 reports.

The justice ministry's response is not surprising:

Kim Young-geun, a deputy director at the Justice Ministry’s Korea Immigration Service, said the ministry doesn’t agree with the report. People who want to work in Korea need to follow the country’s law, he said.

“Different countries have different visa policies. It is a matter of a country’s sovereignty to decide who should be allowed to enter the country,” said Kim. He added that the ministry included only requirements that it deemed necessary.

That's pretty much the same thing they said a month ago. The statistics that Wagner found regarding drug arrests were very interesting: the highest number of arrests in a given year was 24 marijuana arrests in 2007 - out of 17,721 E2 visa holders - and 0 arrests for any other drug, though it's for drugs other than marijuana that E2 visa holders are being tested for. Sounds like a necessary requirement to me. Perhaps car insurance records from home countries should also be submitted with E2 visa applications... they'd seem to be about as relevant.

[Update - as noted in the comments, YTN has also reported on this, as has the Munhwa Ilbo - so that's 4 reports, though the Yonhap piece was carried by Naver News as well].

The end of the tunnel, etc

Here's the apparently finished tunnel I looked at in this post...

...they just need to finish the ramps to the Olympic Expressway.
But I digress...

Well, it's been a busy month and a half, what with a trip home and lots of work and personal obligations upon my return, but I imagine by tonight or tomorrow night I should be posting a little more regularly than the three posts I managed to put up in January. Sorry about that (and the unanswered comments). I finally got around to updating the template for this blog, though the categories need to be updated, which will take a week (or more) of plugging away at to complete. The updated 'archives' sidebar is much more practical, though it was often surprising for me to look at the long string of months under the old archives sidebar and think, "Wow, that long, huh?" I'll be doing some more tweaking over the next month (as well as producing some content - imagine that!).

Thanks to those people who nominated Gusts of Popular Feeling for 4 Golden Klog Awards. It's nice to know someone is reading what you write, and even better to have people think it's worth spending their time reading. If you haven't voted, hurry on over and do so now (part 1, part 2)!

Vote for me and I'll set you free (why yes, I am fond of this Love and Rockets song, itself a cover of this Temptations song (which for some reason brings to mind this Stevie Wonder song (a more rockin' version of which is at 3:00 here (aided by the Rolling Stones) in the film Cocksucker Blues, directed by Robert Frank, whose 1958 photo book The Americans is an old favourite of mine. The Stones didn't like the film, what with its depictions of drug use and groupie shenanigans, and a court ruling declared that the film could only be shown with the director present. Now that's rock and roll.) No wait, the Monks are.)