Another journalistic classic

Ilyo Seoul, or the Daily Sun, a political tabloid paper (see its covers here), has picked up the story of the Korean American gangsters/murderer/drug dealer who became English teachers, which I looked at here, here and here. Apparently, the pressures of only writing about 'things that have actually happened' and using 'facts' was too much of a challenge for reporter Yun Ji-hwan, so he just decided to fabricate in its entirety the final section of the article below.

The Seriousness of Foreign Teachers’ Ugly Double Lives Cannot Be Measured
They have no taboos against money, sex, or drugs

Recently a Korean American who had taken part in gang activities and committed murder in the U.S. and who openly worked as a teacher in Korea was exposed. This incident has shown how lax the management of foreign teachers is. Problems concerning foreign teachers are nothing new. The teachers’ excesses and disordered private lives are a problem, but another problem is that hagwons do not carry out proper verification when hiring native teachers. Calls are becoming more urgent for laws to regulate hagwons in Korea that allow foreign lawbreakers to disguise themselves as native speaking teachers. As well, foreign teachers are of course distributing drugs which are being abused. For this reason areas around universities where young people gather have been a paradise for drugs for some time.

The number of foreign teachers buying, selling, and of course producing drugs is increasing. An American working as a teacher at an English hagwon who grew, processed, sold and smoked marijuana for several months was caught by police.

[From there it reports on the familiar story of the ex-gangsters and pot growers, and then continues.]

Unkempt activities every night

Foreign teachers' disordered private lives have highlighted numerous social problems. Not only drugs, but also incidents of sexual violence by foreign teachers are increasing yearly. Especially, incidents involving foreign teachers taking pictures of lewd acts with Korean women and putting them on the internet are common. If we examine recent incidents related to foreigners, there numerous cases where drugs and sexual assault are connected. After taking drugs rape occurs in a drugged state.

There are surprisingly many women who have associated with foreigners and become mired in drugs, police explained. According to an official of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, in recent years drugs and marijuana have persistently increased at the hands of foreign teachers who have come to Korea.

A police official said, "There are many women who come into contact with marijuana or other drugs in clubs or foreign teachers’ houses and become addicts,” and “Because they’re young and curious they think that if they just try it once or twice they’ll be okay and then become caught up in drugs.

For most, drug-taking is followed by sex. Many drug cases occur because men and women gather together. Police have seen a considerable number of women who suffered an unexpected rape when they were high. It’s known however that most of the women who suffer rape in this way do not report it to the police, because they fear that the fact they took drugs might be discovered.

A police official said “Among foreign teachers there have been reported cases of them having sex with an unbelievable number of Korean women.” “One teacher showed symptoms of drug addiction, and I was speechless when he told me he slept with 200 women and did marijuana or other drugs with most of them,” he sighed.

Drug addiction leaves one in a state where normal behavior is not possible, and regarding hagwons which allow such lectures, strong measures against the thoughtless recruiting of foreign teachers are urgently required.

Reporter Yun tells a chilling story of debauchery and ruined lives. The only problem is that I haven't come across any newspaper reports of sexual assault against Korean women by foreign English teachers (there are a small number of molestation charges involving students), and certainly none involving sexual assault and drugs. The English Spectrum incident and another case involving a blogger who posted photos of adult students and nude 'models' are likely the basis of the claim that posting lewd photos of Korean women on the internet is 'common.' There are some pretty bold claims made in that article, but not a single case or statistic is cited to back anything he wrote up. Perhaps he simply saw things like this on TV, or read this equally dubious quote from 2007:

A source at the foreign affairs division of the Seoul Police Department said, "American and Canadian English teachers think Korea is a 'land of opportunity.'" They become hagwon teachers not only because there is no country which has much desire to learn English as Korea but because they believe they can make up to 1,000,000 won per month through illegal private lessons. The source also said, "the majority of them find it easy to seduce Korean women and do drugs with them." Foreign English teachers see Korea not only as a 'land of opportunity' but also as a 'perverted heaven'.

At least tabloids like Breaknews would base a [totally exaggerated] story on at least one or two facts. Instead of writing about the 'disordered private lives' of foreign English teachers, a good source of material would more likely be the 'disordered writing habits' of Korean journalists and editors. Reporter Yun can be reached here: jjh@dailysun.co.kr

On that topic, I was told that after reading an article about foreign bloggers, an editor from one of the English language dailies (I'm sure you can figure out which one) told someone involved with the article, "You know that many of these foreigners who come to our country are uneducated," in reference to the bloggers.

Oh, and I found another Korean American gangster/teacher cartoon from 2008:

"Wanted" "Teacher"

We can now complete the collection:

English instructor (2006)

(2010)

The article translated above used the word 둔갑, which as a verb (둔갑하다) means to transform into or take the shape of (as in "외국인 범법자를 원어민 강사로 둔갑시키는 국내 학원," or "hagwons that let foreign criminals transform into native speakers") and it's interesting that one of the first examples given by Naver's online dictionary is "사람으로 둔 갑한 여우," or "a fox in the shape of man," which likely explains the photo above; further discussion of the meaning of the photo can be found here.