"Unfit foreign instructors should be a 'social issue'"

The 2005 English Spectrum Incident

Part 1: English Spectrum and 'Ask The Playboy'
Part 2: The Kimchiland where it’s easy to sleep with women and make money
Part 3: English Spectrum shuts down as Anti-English Spectrum is created
Part 4: How to hunt foreign women
Part 5: Did the foreigners who denigrated Korean women throw a secret party?
Part 6: The 'Ask The Playboy' sexy costume party
Part 7: Stir over ‘lewd party’ involving foreigners and Korean women
Part 8: The 2003 post that tarred foreign English teachers as child molesters
Part 9: Netizens shocked by foreign instructor site introducing how to harass Korean children
Part 10: Movement to expel foreign teachers who denigrated Korean women
Part 11: "Middle school girls will do anything"
Part 12: Netizens propose 'Yankee counter strike force'
Part 13: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 1
Part 14: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 2
Part 15: Web messages draw Koreans’ wrath
Part 16: Thai female laborers and white English instructors
Part 17: 'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors
Part 18: "Korean men have no excuse"
Part 19: "Unfit foreign instructors should be a 'social issue'"

On January 17, Dailian published the following article, the first to link the Anti English Spectrum cafe with political activity.

"Unfit foreign instructors should be a 'social issue'"

Anti English [Spectrum] cafe and citizen groups unify to throw out unfit instructors

"We should diagnose the current state of English education in Korea and strengthen regulations related to, and enforcement over, foreign instructors."

Ministry of Education: There are too many hagwons and fact finding on foreign instructors and enforcement over illegalities is inadequate.

With the stir over the 'lewd Korean women - foreigner party,' started by comments written by foreigners denigrating Korean women at the foreigner job site English Spectrum's 'Ask the Playboy' forum, those who attended the party are strongly denying a connection with 'Ask the Playboy' while netizens are fiercely resisting and starting a 'movement to expel unfit foreign English instructors.'

On the 14th a netizen petition titled 'Let's expel low quality foreign instructors' was started with the aim of getting 10,000 signatures, and as of the afternoon of the 17th there are about 9,000. In the midst of this, members of the Naver Anti-English Spectrum cafe, which is running the 'movement to expel unfit foreign English instructors,' had an online chatting meeting on the 17th and decided to meet offline on the 18th to complain to relevant government departments and the national assembly, and to make connections with citizen groups in order to spread the movement.

The war of nerves between the cafe manager and the owner of M Club, which is known to have provided the location for the party, shows signs of heading towards lawsuits in court. The netizens stand opposed, saying, "M Club's owner's words do not explain things" and "We condemn M Club, and if the women in the photos and the club owner bring a lawsuit for defamation, netizens will counterclaim and will raise court costs."

They also said, "We have to inform people of the seriousness of this incident and raise the alarm in society regarding unfit foreign English instructors who denigrate Korean women," and produced various parody posters.

That day, over the phone with Dailian, cafe manager 'Bba'allyuchi' [빠알류치] revealed that, "The problems with unfit foreign English instructors led to a serious incident, but as of yet the owner of M Club and some women do not feel any social responsibility." "The purpose of operating this cafe is not to have a legal battle with them but to diagnose and correct the current state of English education which is badly situated in our society."

'Bba'al'lyuchi' also said, "Legal problems with the operation of the cafe will be settled through the law." "Because admitting and correcting mistakes is more important than ridiculous excuses, through connections with citizen groups, including the signature campaign, the seriousness of the problem will be made known and through relevant government agencies and the national assembly, we will make efforts in order to modify relevant regulations.

A detective with the Ilsan police’s cyber crimes division monitoring the cafe's activities due to reports by netizens revealed that, "We once monitored the relevant site but didn't discover any criminal issues regarding its activities." "If the people directly involved raise a complaint or accusation, then a concrete investigation can begin."

One official at the Ministry of Education, the agency responsible for enforcement against unfit foreign English instructors, revealed that, "In fact, enforcement is the [responsibility] of each city and provincial office of education affiliated with the ministry" and "At present, the Ministry of Education has no concrete plans to crack down on unfit foreign English instructors."

An official with the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education complained about the difficulty of enforcement in a phone call with Dailian, saying, "In Seoul alone there are 12,000 hagwons but only 40 public servants supervising the hiring of hagwon instructors."

The official said, "Currently, related offices of education do not have many accurate statistics for foreign instructors, but we are identifying and studying instructors as a whole."

The official also evaded responsibility, saying, "Hiring foreigners who enter the country on tourist visas as instructors is illegal, but currently the office of education finds it difficult to supervise them."

Rep. Lee Gun-hyeon (proportional representative), GNP secretary and member of the National Assembly's education committee, said, "Problems with foreign instructors have arisen in the past, but recently, as the number of foreign instructors has increased, so have these problems increased." "We should have a thorough crackdown and legally regulate the need for teaching qualifications."

"We should strengthen existing qualification screening and actively review measures to strengthen enforcement in order to prevent them from teaching when they enter the country based on their personal capacity."

Environment and labor committee member Rep. Bae Il-do observed, "This incident should be approached looking at both education and foreign workers." "As interest in English increases, the demand for native speaking instructors increases, but the government's awareness is standing still."

Rep. Bae pointed out that, "The government lags behind in its appreciation of the change in the situation and does not have rigorous qualification screening, and there is also a problem with its discriminatory approach to foreign workers who work in different businesses, and foreign instructors."

Ruling Uri Party member and education committee Rep. Ji Byeong-mun said also, "Recently this issue has spread and we should review the preparation of measures and piece together the present relevant regulations and enforcement to emphasize the importance of English." "The Ministry of Education's will to change is also important."

Lots of fascinating stuff in this article. First off, regarding this -

"We condemn M Club, and if the women in the photos and the club owner bring a lawsuit for defamation, netizens will counterclaim and will raise court costs."

- it's pretty clear that, not only are these guys assholes ("Now's the chance to humiliate those crazy bitches," anyone?) , they're also completely ignorant about libel law. Not that I would pretend to know a great deal about it, but if the women were avoiding going to work because of the photos spread by these netizens, I'd imagine they'd be able to sue for monetary damages, whereas the netizens could claim no such damages (of any sort, barring a case of carpal tunnel syndrome or three).

"The problems with unfit foreign English instructors led to a serious incident, but as of yet the owner of M Club and some women do not feel any social responsibility."

Bad women! Bad! Quite the "serious incident," we have here - naughty pictures of Korean women "intertwined" with white men and their large... noses which, as AES would later have posted on their front page for 4 years, caused them to feel "unendurable humiliation." It would take some time, but eventually they would realize that tarring foreign English teachers as AIDS threats who need to be tested for HIV would be the best way to try to convince Korean women to keep away from them (Scott Burgeson has referred to the HIV tests as 'institutionalized cock blocking').

At any rate, three days before this article, AES cafe founder 'Bba'al'lyuchi' explained why he opened the cafe:

"It's always just sad that some thoughtless women sympathize with foreigners who they don't realize have approached them with this (sexually demeaning) way of thinking about Korean women." "[This cafe] is a place where people who are worried about this and who want to make an issue of foreigners who demean Korean women as if they are all cheap whores."

Three days later, things had changed:

"The purpose of operating this cafe is not to have a legal battle with them but to diagnose and correct the current state of English education which is badly situated in our society."

So began the great backpeddle, and the move towards improving the "state of English education." In doing this, they began to articulate political goals:

[T]he seriousness of the problem will be made known and through relevant government agencies and the national assembly, we will make efforts in order to modify relevant regulations.

Also interesting is that we see Rep. Lee Gun-hyeon interviewed in this article. Four and a half years later, in September 2009, Lee would make news by declaring that "Native speaking English teacher crime [is] serious" and offering statistics which, ironically, showed that the foreign teacher crime rate was actually five times less than the Korean crime rate. Oops.

At any rate, AES was clearly serious about following up on their intentions, as this reveals:

They also said, "We have to inform people of the seriousness of this incident and raise the alarm in society regarding unfit foreign English instructors who denigrate Korean women," and produced various parody posters.

When the parody posters come out, you know the netizens mean business.

(Detourned poster for the 2004 film "Everybody has Secrets")

This man is… a native speaker
One native speaking instructor’s nasty comments

The secret inside story of a man and a middle school girl
If you have 100,000 won, you can do whatever you want with any middle school girl.
The people in the above photo are not related to anyone in particular

(Detourned poster for the 2002 film "Another Public Enemy")

English Spectrum
Unqualified foreign instructors
Hongdae XXXX Bar
If you can only learn English, you’ll give everything.
Some people with no self respect and no sense
[Sorry, not going to translate all of it...]

In the political realm, things went beyond the two representatives mentioned in this article. On January 18, a NoCut News article summarizing commentary in the national assembly described comments by Rep. Kim Hui-jeong in a National Assembly Standing Committee who talked about the influence of pro Roh groups and then suddenly said,

There is the policy planning committee's proposal, but the stir over the foreign instructor sex scandal manual continues. We shouldn't bring in low quality foreign instructors.

Then on January 19, a Financial News article describing "Internet talk" included this:

"Before instructors are hired in hagwons, it should be made mandatory for instructors to go though a qualification screening. For people in a position to teach to be of such low quality is a tragedy for all of us." = [This is in reference to comments saying that] a legal regulation should be made to screen the qualifications of foreign instructors due to recent postings by some foreign instructors which denigrated Koreans. (National Assembly home page, ID Lee Geon-yeong).

On the one hand, such suggestions for a "qualification screening" for foreign teachers were good ideas, and overdue; on the other hand, most of the media and official commentary about the 'problems' caused by foreign teachers revolved around the fact that the had "denigrated Koreans" on the internet (there was less candor about what had really riled the netizens up). Despite all of this talk on the internet and even by national assembly representatives, it would be more than two years before such "qualification screenings" would come to pass.

Keep out Lady Gaga and mad cow beef; improve USFK's 'occupying' attitude

The protests by Christians against the source of all that is evil in the world - Lady Gaga - are rather amusing, as this article from last weekend relates:

About 300 Protestant church members will gather in downtown Seoul Sunday night to hold a group prayer against the concert in the capital, Kang Ju-Hyun, a prayer organiser told AFP.

"We will pray to God that the concert will not be realised so that homosexuality and pornography will not spread around the country," he said.

(From here)

(From here)

(From here)

Does anyone else find this 'two minute hate'-ish set-up to be a little...creepy?

(From here)

Kang, who leads a group called Alliance for Sound Culture In Sexuality, said other major church groups would join his campaign by holding protests around the Seoul headquarters of Hyundai Card, the concert organiser.

(From here; a close up is here)

The Korean Association of Church Communication vowed last month to take "concerted action to stop young people from being infected with homosexuality and pornography."

Kang's group last week put out street banners in Seoul accusing the eccentric singer of "spreading unhealthy sexual culture" through "lewd lyrics and performances," before they were removed by the city officials.[...]

(From here)

The poster above reads "Cancel the performance of the main culprit in the spread of suicidal urges and homosexuality." Funny how that sounds quite similar to the slogans of anti-American church groups in the late 1980s who once held a "Rally resolving to expel AIDS and American pornographic prostitution culture." How things change.

Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, is famous for the hit songs "Bad Romance" and "Poker Face," and has become a strident voice for gay rights and anti-bullying campaigns.

Seeing as the Christians are trying to bully Hyundae and God into banning Lady Gaga's concert, I can see how they'd be against the anti-bullying campaigns.

This article looks at the reaction of moral guardians throughout Asia, including Korea, Indonesia, and the Philippines, to Lady Gaga's tour.

The multi-million-selling artist arrived in South Korea last week ahead of the first date of her "Born This Way Ball" at Seoul's 70,000 seat Olympic Stadium Friday, the start of a touring juggernaut encompassing 110 dates.[...]

Conservative Christian groups in South Korea have rallied against the self-styled "Mother Monster", accusing her of promoting pornography and homosexuality on malleable young minds.[...]

Scores of Protestant church members held a group prayer on Sunday against the concert, calling her dance moves "satanic" performances that "contaminate souls" of the country's youth.

South Koreans aged under 18 have been banned from the show, Lady Gaga's second concert in the country, after the government rated it unsuitable for younger audiences.

Internet portals and social network sites have been abuzz with intense debates, with most commentators accusing the religious groups of bigotry.

"What an international embarrassment they are! Do they really believe they can violate other people's right to enjoy her show?" said one anonymous user.

I can't say I really know anything about Lady Gaga; the only song I've heard by her was Cartman singing the song 'Poker Face' in the South Park episode 'Whale Whores.' Korea Bang has translations of the netizen reaction (much of it rather anti-Christian) here. More photos are here. Lady Gaga arrived in Seoul wearing a cleavage-revealing outfit, and one wonders if she may have already started to bring down her 'anti-movement' from within...

In other news related to evil emanating from the US, the Korea Times reporting on its being snubbed by USFK (you know a newspaper will be objective when reporting on itself!) in two different articles is full of fun, what with quotes about the "lying," "authoritarian" USFK Public Affairs Office, which does not deal "with [Korean] reporters in a professional and sincere manner," acts "as if they are occupation forces," and "needs to make more efforts to regain trust from Korean reporters."

"I believe there is a need for us to take collective action to urge the U.S. Forces to improve their way of dealing with the media," said Bae Seong-jun, the head of the association and a reporter at broadcaster YTN.

YTN, paragon of unbiased news reporting that it is, has every right to urge this action.

Speaking of evil emanating from the US and ethical news reporting (or more, editorializing), the Hankyoreh has an editorial on the discovery of mad cow disease in the US (hat tip to Scott Burgeson):

South Koreans have responded very keenly to this. Indeed, we can get some sense of how sensitive the response has been from the fact that some department stores and supermarkets have independently halted sales of US beef, even though the government has yet to announce any measures.

Perhaps because the stores are afraid the Hankyoreh and other leftist news outlets will help set off another movement against mad cow disease-tainted beef being sent by the US to ravage the Korean peninsula?

Seoul’s response was tepid. Far from ordering any immediate quarantine inspection suspensions, all it has done is announce that it will be requesting information from Washington and strengthening its quarantine measures. This is far too casual an approach to take, given how intently the South Korean public is watching. It is all well and fine to be cautious, but this response raises questions as to whether the government’s priorities lie with citizen health or with the interests of the United States. It seems to have already forgotten that the candlelight vigils against mad cow disease four years ago were triggered by the irresponsible attitude of the government, which seemed to put citizen health second.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the government most certainly has not forgotten about the candlelight vigils against mad cow disease four years ago, which were most certainly not "triggered by the irresponsible attitude of the government," but by anti government activists who skillfully created a panic using the internet and media.

Screening of "My Heart is Not Broken Yet"

I was asked to post this:

The Women's Global Solidarity Action Network (WGSAN) will be hosting a
free documentary film screening of "My Heart is Not Broken Yet", a
powerful testimony of Song Shin-do Halmoni's continued fight for
justice as a former "comfort woman" (women who were drafted into
military sexual slavery during the Japanese occupation in World War
II). Come watch this courageous survivor, witness her story, and help
raise global awareness so we can get this issue resolved in 2012. "My
Heart is Not Broken Yet" tells the story of the trail and struggle of
Song Sin-do Halmoni who has continually campaigned for redress on the
issue of the "comfort women." Although she lost the trial she states
that "my soul is undefeated" which reveals her desire to fight for
justice.

The film screening will be on Sunday, April 29th at 3pm in the 시청각실
(screening room) on the fourth floor at the Seoul Women's Plaza. To
get to Seoul Women's Plaza, go out exit 3 of Daebang Station (대방역) on
line 1, walk 50m into the left alley. Seating is first come, first
served and the movie is in Korean with English subtitles.


Directions: http://www.seoulwomen.or.kr/nhpeng/intro/directions.jsp

For more information email: womens.global.solidarity@gmail.com

For the facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/264581113632923/

The 'Taegukki'-like Hearsey brothers

Yesterday I posted briefly about Archibald Lloyd Hearsey, a Canadian Korean War veteran who asked to be buried in Korea with his brother, who was killed in battle here in 1951.

As it turns out, there's more to the story. I was talking to Canadian embassy staff last night who emphasized that this was the first time any foreign veteran of the Korean War had asked to be buried in Korea, and when the group of veterans and Hearsey's daughter and grandson arrived at Incheon Airport, an ROK honour guard was waiting.

(Newsis)

(Yonhap)

I was told his family members come from northern Ontario, and had to fly to Thunder Bay, then Toronto, then Vancouver, and then Incheon, and that after that long trip, the reception, with 20-30 reporters present, was a bit overwhelming.

(Yonhap)

As the Korea Herald reported,

Archibald Hearsey’s ashes were brought to Korea as part of the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs’ program providing Korean War veterans with a chance to revisit Korea. The program began in 1975 and 28,500 veterans have visited Korea since then. [...]

[Hearsey's] story was first conveyed to Korea’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs by Canadian Senator Yonah Martin. The story fueled a fundraising campaign to enable Debbie Hearsey to make the trip to Korea.

As this article adds,

The visit was part of Korea Revisit Week, an annual event supported by the South Korean government. This year, a total of about 200 veterans from Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand spent five days in South Korea visiting historical sites.

This would be because on April 22, 1951, the Chinese spring offensive led to the battles of the Imjin River and Kapyong, with British troops playing a large role in the former (as depicted in Andrew Salmon's book To The Last Round) and Canadian, Australian and New Zealand troops playing large roles in the latter.

Archibald Hearsey's ashes were interred with his brother at the UN Cemetery in Busan yesterday.

(Yonhap)

(News 1)

The above image is from KBS's news report, which can be seen here. There have actually been quite a few Korean language news reports about this. This YTN report (with video as well) is titled "Older brother, because of me you entered the war, I want to be buried with you." What has captured the imagination has been the similarities of the Hearsey brothers' story - in which an older brother joins the military to fight in the Korean war to protect his younger brother, and who dies in the younger brother's arms - with the Korean film Taegukki: Brotherhood of War; hence the title of this Yonhap article, titled 'Canada "Taegukki"-like Hearsey brothers interred together.' This news report also begins with footage from the film, and riding the AREX home last night, I saw a headline flash on a screen showing YTN news which was similar to the title of the Yonhap article. At any rate, kudos to the classy way in which the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs handled this.

Oh, and unrelated (though this very disturbing article on the topic just came out), but it came up in conversation last night - I had no idea Tablo was a Canadian citizen.

Return to Gapyeong

The Joongang Ilbo has an interesting story about the tribute to the Canadian troops (attended by 50 veterans) who fought at the Battle of Gapyeong between April 22-26, 1951, which focuses on the story of Archibald Lloyd Hearsey, who fought in the battle.

Six months [after Gapyeong], Hearsey would survive another battle on Hill #187 in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi, north of Gapyeong. That would be the day of his greatest tragedy. Stumbling into the battle, he discovered that his older brother Joseph William Hearsey had enlisted, been shipped to Korea, and was fighting alongside him.

Joseph would die on Hill #187 - in his younger brother’s arms.

The group of visiting Canadians have brought the ashes of Archibald, who died last June, to be reunited with the remains of his brother Joseph. They are the first two foreign siblings who fought together in the Korean War to be reunited in this way. Archibald left a will asking his family to try to make it happen.

Read the rest here.

Another update on Anti English Spectrum's accomplishments

Below is an update to this post translating Anti English Spectrum's list of accomplishments, which can be found here in Korean (first result) and incorporates this update from last summer. Between September 2009, when I first posted it, and July 2011, when the translated update was posted, AES added13 updates to the list, but in the last five months of 2011 they added eight updates. Links to their posts via Naver search are included where possible; otherwise the location of their post is included (only members can read them).

-----

2011.08.15
Made successful a Chosun Ilbo article about native speaking instructors taking and distributing new kinds of drugs.
"Drugs are entering through Yougle (Youtube + Google)" [Translated here]
Alerted the nation to the spread of new kinds of drugs by native speaking instructors via Youtube and Google. Reported 20 such sites spreading drugs to an agency.

2011 August to September (Enforcement scheduled)
The Ministry of Education passed legislation allowing the disclosure of [hagwon] instructor confirmation on relevant office of education homepages. Since 2008 our group has demanded agencies establish a system allowing parents to confirm instructors on relevant office of education homepages and finally this legislation was achieved.
http://cafe.naver.com/englishspectrum/11009

2011.09.29
The native speaking instructors' petition to find the foreigner health check (AIDS check) unconstitutional is rejected.
To maintain the native speaking instructor AIDS test, our group urged media who form public opinion, the MOJ, public corporations litigating for the government, the Regulatory Reform Commitee affiliated with the prime ministers office, etc. that strong measures were required.
The AIDS test for native speaking instructors is still maintained.
http://cafe.naver.com/englishspectrum/11062 [Click first result]


2011.12.07
Seoul Metropolitan Council plans to gradually phase out the SMOE native speaking English assistant teacher system.
The hiring budget for SMOE NSETs will be gradually reduced and by 2014 NSETs will be phased out in secondary schools. Our group constantly asked SMOE and Seoul city to switch over the NSET budget to support Korean English teachers.
[For more information see here.]
http://cafe.naver.com/englishspectrum/10621
http://cafe.naver.com/englishspectrum/11130

2011.12.09
Made possible the arrest and expulsion from the classroom of murderer, rapist, gangster native speaking instructors who faked their academic backgrounds. These criminal instructors were arrested and punished after a year of effort.
[They link to TV news reports by KBS, SBS and MBC. More information on this arrest is here.]

2011.12.13
Participated in SMOE English education forum.
Requested the wholesale reduction of instructors and cuts to the NSET budget
Requested thorough supervision of native speaking hagwon instructors.
Requested that the NSET budget be transferred to the budget for improving the capabilities of Korean teachers.

2011.12.15
Cooperated with MBC Live Broadcast This Morning
Interviewed about problems with low quality native speaking instructors, cooperated with broadcaster. Made parents aware of the seriousness of the problem.

2011.12.19
Seoul Metropolitan Council passes large scale cuts to the NSET budget
Native speakers will be reduced in High Schools from 2012, middle school NSETs from the middle of 2012
We achieved the final goal of our group
Filed many petitions with the MOE, National Assembly, human rights commission, citizen rights commission [?], etc. regarding reducing NSETs.

-----

Since January, their site has seen a drop off in activity and M2 (Lee Eun-ung) is no longer the leader of the group. The drop in the number of posts seems understandable - they've achieved pretty much everything they wanted to achieve, what with the AIDS tests still being in place and public schools undergoing gradual ethnic cleansing. It's hard to know what influence the group's petitions had on the decision to reduce NSETs in schools, but months before reducing NSETs due to budget costs was talked about in the media, the AES front page had a call to stop hiring NSETs in schools precisely because of the cost. I'll save a look at that for another day.

"Korean men have no excuse"

The 2005 English Spectrum Incident

Part 1: English Spectrum and 'Ask The Playboy'
Part 2: The Kimchiland where it’s easy to sleep with women and make money
Part 3: English Spectrum shuts down as Anti-English Spectrum is created
Part 4: How to hunt foreign womenPart 5: Did the foreigners who denigrated Korean women throw a secret party?
Part 6: The 'Ask The Playboy' sexy costume party
Part 7: Stir over ‘lewd party’ involving foreigners and Korean women
Part 8: The 2003 post that tarred foreign English teachers as child molesters
Part 9: Netizens shocked by foreign instructor site introducing how to harass Korean children
Part 10: Movement to expel foreign teachers who denigrated Korean women
Part 11: "Middle school girls will do anything"
Part 12: Netizens propose 'Yankee counter strike force'
Part 13: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 1
Part 14: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 2
Part 15: Web messages draw Koreans’ wrath
Part 16: Thai female laborers and white English instructors
Part 17: 'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors
Part 18: "Korean men have no excuse"

On January 17, 2005, the Hankook Ilbo decided to focus on netizen views which were critical of the cyber mob which hounded the women in the photos.

"Korean men have no excuse"

Netizen controversy over "posts denigrating Korean women" by foreign language instructors.
"The problem is unconditionally treating as a whore anyone who dates a foreign man."
There are many more netizens who say "It's also an issue in foreign counties... it's natural to criticize"

As controversy rages due to Korean netizens angry reaction to posts by some foreign language instructors who posted writing denigrating Korean women and students on an internet site, an argument that the true fault lies with Koreans' 'inner self reflection' is drawing attention.

One netizen wrote a post titled "Foreign instructors and racist double standards" at the 'Jinbonuri' homepage. It said, "The mentality of patriarchal protection Korean men have towards Korean women is entirely full of contempt." "Don't even think of using aimless violence, instead, protest regarding the copyright law which fills content companies' stomachs."

The person wrote, "What do Korean men do when they go to Southeast Asia? They buy sex, are supercilious and arrogant, and display a spirit of being crude nouveau riche/upstarts, and around Southeast Asia an Anti-Korean wind is blowing." "From the outset, (Korean men) have no excuse for their actions."

The writer wrote on the premise that "The things some foreign instructors said demeaning Korean women are clearly wrong," "but still, opposing the powerful global tumor, racism, with similar racist violence is wrong."

In considering the movement toward physical punishment of foreigners, it criticized the netizens saying, "(Koreans) don't think at all about workers from southeast Asia and some netizens are consistent only in their nationalist behavior."

Another netizen posted at a discussion group at the portal Daum, "It's not about never trying to take sides with foreign instructors. The foreign instructors' behavior is wrong." "It's trying to show the negative effects of nationalism and express concern over things like the promotion of group mentality."

The writer pointed out that some Korean men are not free from the criticism that foreign instructors have received: "Aren't there also Korean students studying in Japan who have promiscuous sex with Japanese women?"

The person added, "The problem has grown serious because of a person committing mistakes in Korea, but the essence of the problem does not come from Korean women."

Another netizen said, "What's wrong with Korean men studying English in the Philippines playing around with the women there and foreign instructors playing around with Korean women?" There was also a netizen who said, "I can't see unconditionally treating a woman as a whore because she dated a foreign man as anything but a nationalistic attitude."

A netizen who expressed concern over the reality of foreigners staying in Korea being treated as criminals said, "[What if] while you stayed in a foreign country an Asian committed a crime, and then the people there treated all Asians as criminals and said 'Let's expel Asians.' And what's worse, what if the girl you're with was treated like a whore? How would you feel?"

On the other hand, there are many more netizens who criticize the instructors and women, saying, "If low quality imported instructors from the US and Canada did it as a group or more systematically, it would be a much bigger problem in Korea now."

A netizen who introduced himself as someone studying in the US argued that, "In the US as well the problem of playing around is just as bad. It's not strange [for Americans] to criticize some [American] women who are thoughtless." One women said, "I saw the problematic club photos, and as a women, I was embarrassed. It's natural to criticize (women who cause problems)."

Except for the last two paragraphs ('natural,' indeed), this article harkens back to the "How to hunt foreign women" article published earlier on which was had some critical views of Korean men and their perceptions of foreign women. While, to be sure, there were not so many articles like these, there were some which criticized negative views of women seen with foreign men and nationalism run amok, and more are yet to come.

'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors

The 2005 English Spectrum Incident

Part 1: English Spectrum and 'Ask The Playboy'
Part 2: The Kimchiland where it’s easy to sleep with women and make money
Part 3: English Spectrum shuts down as Anti-English Spectrum is created
Part 4: How to hunt foreign women
Part 5: Did the foreigners who denigrated Korean women throw a secret party?
Part 6: The 'Ask The Playboy' sexy costume party
Part 7: Stir over ‘lewd party’ involving foreigners and Korean women
Part 8: The 2003 post that tarred foreign English teachers as child molesters
Part 9: Netizens shocked by foreign instructor site introducing how to harass Korean children
Part 10: Movement to expel foreign teachers who denigrated Korean women
Part 11: "Middle school girls will do anything"
Part 12: Netizens propose 'Yankee counter strike force'
Part 13: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 1
Part 14: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 2
Part 15: Web messages draw Koreans’ wrath
Part 16: Thai female laborers and white English instructors
Part 17: 'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors

On January 17, Naeil Sinmun published a column titled 'Tomorrow's Eye' which looked at the English Spectrum 'scandal.'

'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors

Day after day, postings at a website for foreign instructors is causing a stir. As photos of a party with foreign instructors and Korean women spread, the scandal continues to escalate.

The most shocking of the postings by foreign instructors is one about how 'even middle school students will do anything.' The foreigner who wrote the post said, "Now I know a student who's only 15. We got to the point that she would do anything I said for 100,000 won." "I had sex with a middle school girl over 20 times." If what this instructor wrote is true, it is clearly 'youth prostitution.'

Therefore, police must decide whether to determine the truth by tracking the instructor's IP and punish him. If he himself reveals that he took part in youth prostitution, it doesn't make sense for police to let it go.

As well, some internet newspapers have already sensationally concluded from scenes of a party attended by foreign instructors and Korean women that it was a 'sex party.' The women and the owner of the club where the party took place have protested, saying, "If women dance with foreigners, does that make it a lewd party and all of them yanggongju?" Among the women one was dating a foreign man. However, their photos have already been posted on the internet in 'sex party' articles and netizens are venting their emotions and anger at them.

Between unscrupulous foreign instructors or foreign men who consider female middle school students to be sex objects and internet media which condemn them as 'yanggongju,' innocent Korean women are being victimized.

Yes, because only foreign instructors would "consider female middle school students to be sex objects" and take part in 'youth prostitution,' right? The guilt of the foreign instructors involved is obviously presumed (hence the word 'confession' in the title), and the writer obviously believes the that the 'mollest' post is true (the idea that what is written on the internet should be taken with a grain of salt is never suggested). On the other hand, it was nice of the writer to mention that "innocent Korean women [were] being victimized" by "internet media," though the "netizens... venting their emotions and anger at them" played an equally, if not more, important role.

Netizens angered by Miryang police's hiring choice

I noticed that there were suddenly hundreds of people reading a four-year-old post titled "Justice for the Miryang victims?" and found that someone at this omonatheydidn't post had linked to it. First off, the former post tells the story of the 2004 Miryang gang rape case, in which three girls were repeatedly raped by high school boys from Miryang (who used video of the initial rape to blackmail them into returning) and who were then humiliated by the police and threatened by the perpetrators' families. Needless to say, if you're trying to cultivate a good mood on this lovely spring day, I wouldn't read that post. (Actually, it might just be best to stop reading now.)

Rather than the omonatheydidn't post, I'll point you at the post they cribbed from at Korea Bang. I've never seen the site before, but definitely approve of the extensive translation which allows you to scroll over and see the original Korean. As is noted there, in the wake of the Suwon rape-murder case which was horribly botched by police (see the Korea Bang post here for the netizen reaction to it), netizens have been enraged by the Miryang police hiring a female friend of the rapists from the 2004 case and have passed around a screen shot of a Cyworld message she wrote at the time to one of them congratulating them on getting away with it and saying, "Those bitches were so ugly anyway." The woman apologized for what she said was a mistake made in her youth, but then netizens dug up a personal statement she made when applying for the job, which says in part:

I think about crime from the viewpoint of criminals too, and in case of sexual assault I am able to consider both – victim’s as well as criminal’s position and whether the victim did not walk around in a manner encouraging to be assaulted.

Well, considering a police officer there said to the victims in 2004 -

"Weren’t you girls waving your asses around and [kept] going there because you liked it? My hometown is Miryang, and you’ve destroyed the reputation of the town."

- perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that they hired her; she would appear to fit right in.

Korea Bang also has a post translating some of the netizen reaction to Jasmine Lee being elected (and there's more discussion at the Wall Street Journal blog). If your good mood wasn't already ruined, I mean...

Thai female laborers and white English instructors

The 2005 English Spectrum Incident

Part 1: English Spectrum and 'Ask The Playboy'
Part 2: The Kimchiland where it’s easy to sleep with women and make money
Part 3: English Spectrum shuts down as Anti-English Spectrum is created
Part 4: How to hunt foreign women
Part 5: Did the foreigners who denigrated Korean women throw a secret party?
Part 6: The 'Ask The Playboy' sexy costume party
Part 7: Stir over ‘lewd party’ involving foreigners and Korean women
Part 8: The 2003 post that tarred foreign English teachers as child molesters
Part 9: Netizens shocked by foreign instructor site introducing how to harass Korean children
Part 10: Movement to expel foreign teachers who denigrated Korean women
Part 11: "Middle school girls will do anything"
Part 12: Netizens propose 'Yankee counter strike force'
Part 13: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 1
Part 14: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 2
Part 15: Web messages draw Koreans’ wrath
Part 16: Thai female laborers and white English instructors

On January 16, 2005, the Kyunghyang Sinmun published the first editorial about the English Spectrum incident, which deals with many of the issues I mentioned in this post about the film Bandhobi, which positively portrays a migrant worker while offering a brief negative portrayal of a foreign teacher. I'd started a post about this editorial awhile ago, so it's lengthier than a lot of the other posts in this series, and also jumps ahead one month to cover a certain TV program.

Thai female laborers and white English instructors

The case of Thai female laborers paralyzed from the waist down due to occupational illness and the stir over the sexual demeaning of Korean women by white English instructors shows well the 'double standard' Koreans apply to foreigners. White people are very warmly welcomed, while foreigners from Asia couldn't receive more cold-hearted treatment. This racially discriminatory attitude is reflected in government policy as well. This is a slice of "Ugly Korea."

Eight female Thai laborers at a factory manufacturing components for LCD monitors were poisoned by toxic cleaners. They were working in a sealed room without safety equipment like gloves or masks. Though they handled hazardous materials, they did not receive a physical checkup and, even after becoming sick, did not receive treatment for some time. This was because they were illegal aliens. The Government also initially only ordered the company to make minor improvements to the working environment, and only after the media covered the story did they reluctantly enter into an investigation.

Many workers from Asian countries are forced into safety blind spots as "modern slaves." At 3D companies they work their fingers to the bone, have wages withheld, and there are also no basic health care benefits. The reality in Korea, which has been a member of the OECD for 9 years, is that businesses which carry out special health diagnosis for the foreign laborers they employ make up only 27% of the total, and during crackdowns net guns are used to catch illegal aliens like animals. Even though Koreans profit from the products produced by these laborers, which are sold to their countries abroad, laborers still face the contemptuous and exploitative attitude of Koreans, something they would never possibly be able to understand.

In contrast, Koreans' unconditionally submissive attitude towards white people such as American English instructors who sexually demeaned Korean women is strongly present. One American instructor confessed even that "If you teach English, you are served like a king." While these are the individual acts of some instructors who have taken advantage of our society's English fever, through the contempt for and disparaging of Korean women, improper sexual ethics and a mentality of envying white people have come to light. Among white instructors are not a few illegal aliens and those unqualified to teach, but they avoid government crackdowns. What kind of country is Korea, unable to free itself from the "two faces" it has toward foreigners?

The case of the Thai workers - eight Thai women between the ages of 19 and 37 - is looked at in detail here, and according to this follow-up, the case

induced the Labor Ministry to inspect 300 factories that handled hexane, as well as another 1,200 factories that dealt with toxic materials and employed foreign workers.

The plant manager and president of the company were both arrested and later given suspended sentences with probation, along with fines for not giving workers proper protection and failure to install ventilation systems within the factory.

While that all sounds like a slap on the wrist to the offenders, the women at least were given free medical treatment (those who had returned home were brought back to Korea) and, as the latter article makes clear, by January 2006 all eight women were able to walk again. I don't know if they were able to stay in Korea, however.

The opinion expressed in the Kyunghyang Sinmun's editorial was obviously shared by others. Weeks after the above editorial was written, similar sentiments appeared again elsewhere (as Ben Wagner reminded me): on the flyer members of Anti English Spectrum handed out to people on the street, which read at one point,

While laborers from South East Asia are looked upon coldly, we are excessively generous to blue-eyed foreigners.

Or as it was put in the Joongang Ilbo regarding foreign teachers,

That this kind of treatment toward them is appropriate is questionable. It’s possible this treatment of foreigners is unreasonably kind.

Mind you, that was in 1984. I also like this quote from the above editorial:

While these are the individual acts of some instructors who have taken advantage of our society's English fever, through the contempt for and disparaging of Korean women, improper sexual ethics and a mentality of envying white people have come to light.

Good to know that "improper sexual ethics" includes being photographed with white men. Compare that quotation to this Donga Ilbo editorial from 1984:

It’s difficult to tell whether the foreign language boom is a bad thing in itself, or whether [the choice of] a marriage [partner], as a personal matter, can be judged as right or wrong, or whether being [overly] kind to foreigners is something to be criticized. Before any of this can be considered, however, one must stand up and have some self respect.

Like night and day, aren't they? (I also like the description of "instructors who have taken advantage of our society's English fever" - as if these people suddenly appeared in hagwons and classrooms one day, invited by no one).

As for the comparison the 2005 editorial makes regarding foreign English teachers and foreign laborers, a similar comparison was made by Bonojit Hussain in September 2009, as the title of this Chosun Ilbo article noted: "Prof. Hussain Brings First Racial Discrimination Case in the Nation, 'If I were white . . .'" That sentence was completed in a Korea Times article on the same topic:

"It was not my first time to be subject to racial abuse. I have had many similar experiences. But this time was serious,'' he said. "It wouldn't have happened to me if I were a white man.''

That statement might have garnered more sympathy had he not been with a Korean woman who suffered a physical assault at the time he was verbally assaulted, something that most assuredly happens to Korean women seen with white men as well (whether physically or through the internet; in fact a similar incident was reported involving a white man with a Korean wife just days after Hussain's case came to light). An outpouring of such stories came out in the letter section of the Korea Times after the 1995 incident in which a fight broke out between Koreans and G.I.s on the subway after a Korean man assaulted the Korean wife of one of the soldiers. Not having scanned those articles yet, here's a similar KT article published on September 9, 1988, the eve of the Olympics:


It should have been clear from this post that, in the midst of netizen anger at the foreign teachers seen in photos with Korean women at the 'sexy costume party,' the netizens were referring to foreign teachers as 'Yankees' (or even outright as 'U.S. soldiers') and the women as 'yanggongju,' a reference to the Korean women who worked as prostitutes in the U.S. base camptowns. The Kyunghyang Sinmun editorial ignored everything about how the netizens were treating the women seen with the foreign teachers, focusing only on their "contempt for and disparaging of Korean women." Not that this should be so surprising, considering how the paper reported on the aforementioned 1995 subway incident with headlines like "Sexual harassment by drunken U.S. soldiers on subway; group assault of passenger who protested," and "U.S. army molesters are barbarians," an early example of an article based entirely on netizen (referred to as 토론자 in the article) opinion.

"USFK crime"

Such anger at GIs or foreign teachers for their treatment of Korean women and 'contempt' for Korea was worth mentioning; similar contempt for Korean women seen with the foreign teachers by netizens was not.

As well, it's ironic that the Kyunghyang Sinmun editorial makes a comparison between the treatment of white teachers and Thais, considering that such a comparison touches upon something else apparently not worth mentioning. The headline "foreigner arrested for drugs" is likely to conjure up the image of the foreign English teacher rather than the nationality which has had the most drug arrests over the past several years (though not last year): 52 of 298 drug arrests of foreigners in 2007, 711 of 928 drug arrests in 2008 [1], 469 of 778 arrests in 2009 [2], and 419 of 858 arrests in 2010 [3] were of Thais - not that you would guess that from reading the news media.

In comparison, according to these statistics, which go from 2007 to August 2010, 91 English teachers were arrested for drugs (there were no reported arrests of foreign teachers after July of that year). Compare this to arrests of Thais for drugs during that time which total 1,760. English teachers are thus arrested at a rate 19 times (or so) less than Thai workers, but a quick search on Naver turns up 498 news results from 2007 to 2010 for 원어민 마약, and 557 results for 외국인강사 마약, but only 225 results for 태국인 마약. While it's not surprising that teachers would get more attention for such crimes than labourers or factory workers, more than twice as much attention for 1/19 of the crimes is quite a discrepancy.

So what we see in how such arrests are reported (or not reported) reveals yet another way in which the image of these two groups of foreigners depicted in the news media little reflects, and in fact reverses, the situation on the ground. This is something I've discussed before about the film Bandhobi, which gives a positive portrayal of a Bangladeshi laborer and a negative portrayal of a foreign English teacher.


In fact, the sentiments of the Kyunghyang Sinmun editorial (ironically the newspaper read in the film by Minseo) are spoken in one scene by Karim, after meeting the English teacher:

But how ridiculous are you people? You brown-nose white people, and look down on us with contempt. You’re hypocrites.

This is a truth many experience, not the world of the noble, suffering migrant worker helped by kind Koreans and the maligned and feared foreign English teacher portrayed in the media (though that's not to say such situations do not exist). In a nod to this truth, Karim is deported, a fate many foreign laborers live in fear of (and which foreign teachers do not). I ran into Mahbub, the actor who played Karim, awhile ago and we talked about the people we knew when we were involved in the migrant workers' movement years ago. "They're all gone - all deported." The point that foreign teachers do not fear the police or deportation was made in the infamous February 2005 episode of the tabloid SBS news program 그것이 알고 싶다 [I Want To Know That] titled "Is Korea their Paradise? Report on the Real Conditions of Blond-haired, Blue-eyed Teachers" (which I've looked at here).


Note that on the show the title was compressed, reducing it to purely racial terms:

"Blond hair, blue eyes - is Korea their paradise?"

The episode, which was a fine example of yellow journalism, at one point looked at the plight of migrant workers in Korea and interviewed a married couple - an English teacher and a migrant worker.


Despite disguising their faces and voices, I immediately recognized them to be my friends Nancy and Kabir, who were involved in the migrant workers' movement at the time. I never had asked them about how that interview came about, so I recently emailed Nancy. Here's her reply:

Kabir and I were sort of "tricked" into doing that show. According to Kabir, he was approached by SBS who said they were doing a show about migrant workers in Korea and Kabir, being at that time being a bit of a media hound trying to get more exposure on the issue of migrant worker rights, readily said yes, without asking me. When he did ask me (after he had said yes to SBS), I looked into the program and based on what people told me about it, I said no. By that time we had found out that they would be interviewing English teachers, which made me even more nervous as the English Spectrum fallout was then in full swing.

Kabir still thought that it was going to be about migrant workers, and didn't understand that the show was likely going to be a big fat sensationalistic crappy yellow dump on English teachers, which was my fear. Soon after, I arrived home from work one night to find an SBS crew in my apartment. Reluctantly, I agreed to do the show and offered the crew some tea.

I didn't like the reporter. Some of the questions she asked: "How do you feel when you are with a brown man and people stare at you on the subway?" "How does your family feel about you being married to a poor brown man?"

I remember talking a lot about how the illegality of doing privates outside of one's contract encourages the "unqualified" teacher market and that Korea being so rabidly "English crazy" made it next to impossible to ensure that foreign teachers met minimal standards. Not sure if that made the final cut. All I really knew at the time was that I didn't trust the producer/journalist one little bit as they seemed opportunistic, insincere, and slimy.*

The part about Korea being rabidly "English crazy" did not make the final cut, though part of the conversation about their different coloured skin did, as the interview begins with Nancy saying, "I think our skin actually looks really nice together." They're introduced as an English instructor and illegal factory worker, and mentions are made of the "very different set of standards for English teachers" Koreans have compared to migrant workers.

Crackdowns on the two groups are described, with Nancy's story of immigration officers bursting into her classroom and scaring the students (solved by her boss "cutting a deal with immigration") or of friends getting in trouble with immigration and leaving the country and returning with no problem compared with Kabir's description of the fear and worry undocumented migrant workers face:

Every day I feel scared and I don’t know if today when the factory finishes or at dinner time I might not come home. If I’m really scared I don’t ride the bus, I take a taxi. When I’ll be caught we don’t know.

Being a leader of the migrant workers' union, Kabir was deported later in 2005. They are now living in Canada, where Nancy teaches language and employability skills to new Canadian immigrants. Kabir, who became a Canadian citizen two years ago, is working as a professional machinist. And there, as Nancy put it, "nobody thinks brown and white together is anything out of the ordinary." Their interview ended with this comment by Nancy:

In Korea there’s kind of a hierarchy of value, that the white, English speaking foreigner has the highest value, and then the white, non-English speaking foreigner has a lesser value, and so on and so on, until you get to the developing countries with people with brown skin and they’re at the bottom of the list.

The results of a survey speak to the differences in treatment:

[A] civic group has conducted the survey to measure the actual conditions of human rights abuses in Korea toward foreign migrant workers, marking the seventh year of implementing the foreigner employment permit system.

With the help of 33 member organizations around the country, the Joint Committee with Migrants in Korea distributed surveys translated into 10 languages from May 1 to May 31, 2011.[...]

Out of the 931 surveyed people, 78.2 percent said that they were verbally abused, and 26.8 percent said they suffered physical abuse at work, according to a survey by the JCMK. Nearly 14 percent answered they were sexually harassed. They were allowed to make multiple answers in the survey.[...]

Of the migrant workers, 40.4 percent said they waited for more than a year to come to Korea.

On their daily work hour, 39.5 percent said they work 8-10 hours, 34.9 percent 10-12 hours.[...]

Of the 1.39 million foreign residents, the number of foreigners whose visiting purpose is to work stood at 716,000. It represents 2.9 percent of the total number of employees here. It said illegal sojourners accounted for 166,000 or 23.6 percent of the foreign workers. [...]

“The human rights conditions of foreign migrant workers have not improved at all. We have conducted research on the actual conditions continuously for the past few years but we cannot say that any improvements have been made,” said Lee Young, secretary of the JCMK.

“The reason why discrimination exists in these work places is because the foreign migrant workers work in 3D jobs under poor conditions. Also, the prejudice against foreigners, especially from developing countries, still exists.”

What Karim - and the Kyunghyang Sinmun - says is true, though this truth is seemingly only described on paper - newsprint to be exact - a primary site of resistance against - and attempt to remedy the problem of - "look[ing] down on" foreign laborers and being "excessively generous" to foreign teachers. While the Donga Ilbo, quoted above, called in 1984 for Koreans to "stand up and have some self respect," what this means in regard to these two groups of foreigners is quite different. For those aware of the actual problems that exist in regard to how these groups are perceived in Korean society, gaining self respect in regard to foreign laborers has, due to embarrassment at how they are actually treated, apparently come to mean trying not to take advantage of them when it comes to depicting them in the media (ie. not reporting every single crime they commit), while the opposite is true when it comes to dealing with western foreigners, especially GIs and English teachers. Appreciated for the wealth and power of their home countries and the language they speak, they must be brought down to size by bringing attention to their moral failings, real and imagined (narratives of victimization at the hands of such foreigners tend to be applied to GIs, but not so much to English teachers). The resulting depiction of these groups in the media stands in contrast to, and is a reversal of, lived experience for many.

Obviously, I can't (finally) get around to posting this without noting the controversy over "Jasmine Lee, the Philippine-born naturalized Korean citizen who became a ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker [becoming] the target of racially-based online attacks." Some of the quoted attacks sound rather familiar, actually, such as "We’ll see the truth of multiculturalism that exploits Koreans" or "Korea is a paradise for foreigners. Korea gives foreigners benefits which it doesn’t even give to its nationals. Come to Korea, you can become lawmakers." That sounds almost exactly like netizen comments and parody posters made during the English Spectrum incident along the lines of 'Come to Korea, you'll be treated like a king.' Well worth reading is the Marmot's take on this incident, which looks at the differences in how the left and right wing media are reporting and editorializing on the incident, as well as (in the comments) reports that the attacks may have been exaggerated by the right or even orchestrated by some unknown party. This Korea Times report on a survey of attitudes towards foreigners is worth reading as well.

Too be sure, what we are seeing in all of this are different aspects of the Korean experience of reordering its world in relation to the foreigners who have come to populate the country in growing numbers over the past two decades.