Yusin lives on - at school

For those who don't know of the 1972 Yusin constitution, there's a little more information here. Needless to say it was one of the more unpleasant periods of the last 50 years to be living in South Korea, what with the ban on all public protest, people disappearing and being tortured at KCIA headquarters, etc. While this culture of punishment, and the stress that accompanied it, may be gone for most people, I can't help but wonder if it lingers on in Korean schools.

For example, a girl in grade four had this done to her by her homeroom teacher in Gapyeong in April of 2006:


This made the news a week and a half ago:

In the 38-second video clip, a teacher is seen striking the hips of two students in a push-up position with the sword. When one student stands up, unable to endure the beating, the teacher follows him to strike his back.[...]

The school, in Jeonju city in North Jeolla Province, said, "The two students often miss class without advance notification. The teacher spoke to them and the students promised not to skip class again but they didn't keep their word. The teacher punished them because they skipped class the previous afternoon, although it seems extreme."

I'm sure anyone who's taught here, even if they're not teaching in public schools, has heard stories of corporal punishment from students. It's not limited to middle and high schools, of course; one pointless story that stands out is of a girl who said she got hit on the hand with a stick by her teacher because of her test score. After I asked her what her score was, she said she got one question wrong. When I asked why she got hit, she told me everyone got one hit per wrong answer. Nice. One middle school girl I remember had had a teacher pinch her upper arm and twist his hand while doing so, leaving a purple bruise. There are also more mundane things like making students stand and squat while holding their ears. One student who received this punishment for being late was walking in obvious pain the next day. While that's not as bad as being hit, you do wonder why pain has to be used to discipline the students. One of my high school students told me she gets held back for 30 minutes after school and has to clean if she's less than 30 minutes late - a penalty which would seem to me to serve its purpose adequately, without need for physical pain.

This has come to light more in the past few years as cell phones with video cameras have become more common. Oranckay reacted as if this was a new development back in April of 2004 in a post titled "girls with video": "Teachers. Cops. Dirty old men. You’ve been warned!" Someone had taken this video of a teacher pummeling a high school girl in Suwon. Interestingly, this predates the Dog Poop Girl by a year, but then netizens weren't cyberstalking the teacher involved. At any rate, this may well be the first such clip. The video's also here on youtube.



A contemporary news clip about this video can be found here.

In November of 2006 another video appeared on the internet (it's also here):

The first-year high school student walked into her seventh period class late, where the teacher forced the girl to her knees and then struck her on the shoulders with a broom multiple times. Other students in the class filmed the incident with their mobile phones, and when the child’s parents saw the video they headed to the school the next day to demand a formal apology and the reprimand of the girl’s teacher.

Another video of a student being beaten (and I do mean beaten) by a teacher in Gimhae made the news in July of this year. A video can be seen here (hat tip to Occidentalism).

This example of a rather petty punishment was posted in February of this year, apparently from Suncheon. It seems more like a ritual to humiliate the students as much as possible, and may be an example of a teacher simply trying to waste time.



Speaking of humiliation, an article translated at Korea Beat describes the results of a poll of

1,248 middle and high school students across the country, finding that 11.2% had experienced having their hair cut by a teacher within the last three years, they announced on the 2nd. 16% of boys and 6.4% of girls had had such an experience, and 22.9% male high school students had.

They're not alway in the most fashionable style, either:


While the practice of grabbing young men with long hair and shaving their heads was, for the general population, confined to the era of authoritarian rulers (it ended in 1982), students in Korea still get to taste that little piece of the past in school. While so many aspects of the Korean education system were simply continued from the systems put in place by the Japanese (like this, for example), most students I've talked to will agree that one thing they like about Japan is the fact that students there can wear their hair however they like.


In mid-May of 2005 protests were held at Gwanghwamun against forced haircuts and calling for liberalization of rules on hair length, as this lengthy Joongang Ilbo article about the issue relates:

Students held a demonstration near Gwanghwamun in central Seoul on May 14, although teachers threatened that those participating in the protest would be subject to reprimands, and went to the area to try to discourage students from rallying. That day, 200 students gathered to protest, along with 400 teachers and, reportedly, 2,000 riot police.

Photos of a similar demonstration a week earlier, which protested against the pressure the system puts on students which often leads to suicide, can be found here (hat tip to the Metropolitician). For (many) more photos of shaved heads, and of bruises from beatings, to head over to nocut.idoo.net (this English page gives a bit of its history, and the photos can be found here). Or you can just watch this video, which compiles many of the photos from the site:



Worth noting is that, at least for most of the students I teach, hair restrictions have loosened a little, with both boys and girls allowed to wear slightly longer hair. Baby steps, I guess.

Going back to the issue of physical violence against students, this two part article from 2002, by teacher with a background in psychology and experience among Koreans in Canada, looks at the problem of corporate punishment in Korean schools (it's also in Korean here).

It has been my experience that the Korean educational system currently accepts, tolerates and legitimizes physical and psychological abuse in its schools. During the last two years, I have personally witnessed Korean teachers physically beat their students to the point that students bled.

On one occasion, a fellow Korean teacher slammed one of my student’s head against the teacher’s desk. This caused the student’s head to cut open and bleed. Other teachers kicked students in the stomach, or beat them with sticks, metal pipes, rods, and wooden bats. Female teachers pinched the cheeks of female students hard enough until tears ran. Elementary school students were beaten over their entire backside with a thick wooden branch while remaining in the push-up position. And on more than one occasion, students were sent to the hospital because of teacher abuse.

I have worked with approximately 180 teachers, and in my opinion more than 70% physically beat students as a method of classroom management and discipline. I have been told repeatedly, teachers beat students out of a deep sense of love. Oddly enough, teachers who beat students have told me they are fearful of sending their own children to the very schools that they teach because of this physical abuse. [...]

It's worth reading it all, even though I may not agree with everything. The second part of the article continues:

A new problem is now emerging out of corporal punishment. As role models, Korean teachers continue to demonstrate to their students that the most effective method of problem solving is through physical punishment. The lesson is simple: If you have a problem, use violence as the solution. Student-to-student violence, and bullying, is now becoming a national problem. These bright students learn more from what we ‘do,’ not from what we ‘say’ as teachers.[...]

The Korean government, on the other hand, has shown their position recently by endorsing physical abuse with specific parameters around the thickness (1cm) and length (50-60cm) of the stick, number of hits to the body (5-10), and so on. Thanks to the Ministry of Education, male students can now be lashed across the buttocks, and female students can be struck on the upper thighs.

The question of how institutional violence reflects on the behavior of students is one worth considering, but not in this post.

Sometimes they come back

A Joseon-era public cemetery on Seoul's outskirts

Ancestral worship, and a propitiation of daemons or spirits, the result of a timid and superstitious dread of the forces of Nature, are to the Korean in place of a religion. Both, I am inclined to believe, are the result of fear, the worship of ancestors being dictated far less by filial piety than by the dread that ancestral spirits may do harm to their descendants. This cult prevails from the king to the coolie. It inspires the costly splendors of the Kur-dong, as well as the spread of ancestral food in the humblest hovel on New Year's Eve.

The graves within an area of ten miles from the city wall are among the remarkable features of this singular capital. The dead have a monopoly on the fine hill slopes and southern aspects. A man who when alive is content with a mud hovel in a dingy alley, when dead must repose on a breezy hill slope with dignified and carefully tended surroundings. [...] The amount of land occupied by the dead is incredible.

- from Korea and Her Neighbours, Isabella Bird Bishop, 1898 (p. 61)

One interesting thing about the second paragraph, as well as the photo above, is that those graves have long since been built over. I wonder if all of those within the graves were carefully reburied, or if... they're still there. Think about that next time you're walking around near downtown Seoul (and why has there never been a horror movie that brings this up, anyways? All you'd have to do is blame the Japanese, and you'd have box office gold!).


The main reason for this post, speaking of horror stories ( "How can he be back?! I - I thought he was (politically) dead!"), was because I found an article about Lee Hoi-chang. Above is an image of the GNP's greatest nightmare - Lee Hoi-chang comes back to life, devours all of Lee Myung-bak's flesh (taking time to pose with his skull), and hands Chung Dong-young the presidency. Okay, that's not what this article is about; it's about how Lee Hoi-chang has "relocated nine of his ancestors' graves in the hopes of winning his third run in the presidential election." The article goes on to talk about how the belief in 'Poongsoo (or Fengshui) and the location of graves are related, and how Lee is not the only person who has relocated family members' graves in the hope of better political fortunes. It's well worth a read, as it reminds you that behind the LCD screens and cellphones there are superstitions which were old when Isabella Bird Bishop wrote about them 110 years ago.

Let them smear cake!

[Update] A student offered the opinion (regarding smearing cake) that cake isn't even liked all that much by many people, and that it serves a more ceremonial function at birthday parties; it's main purpose is to look good. I couldn't help but think of food used during chesa, some of which is left behind. Interesting. Another student's comments reminded me that other than sweets like yeot or yakgwa, intensely sweet desserts or candies haven't traditionally been part of the Korean diet, though Haitai Caramels have been around for quite a while. The following ad is from 1960:

[Original post]

A little while ago, Kevin at Big Hominid wrote about his students' reaction to pop-tarts and discussed the differences between Korean and western tastes in sweets:

It's a strange paradox of the Korean palate that Koreans love spicy food when it comes to meals, but seem to prefer cakes and cookies that, by Western standards, are woefully bland and desiccated, bereft of all oomph.

Be sure to read the entire post. I'd have to add that, due to the Korean taste for mayonnaise and ketchup, there is quite a bit of creaminess and sweetness to be found - but not usually in places were I might expect to find it at home (salads come to mind here). I never ate mayonnaise before I came here (I've never been a condiment person) but have learned to tolerate it; ketchup on the other hand I despise.

The first dessert that comes to mind, of course, is cake. I've always thought that most western style cakes in Korean (excluding Baskin Robbins ice cream cakes) taste like airy nothingness. The problem is not with secondary characteristics such as there sometimes being cherry tomatoes on top (or sweet potato inside). The problem lies at the core - the lack of flavour and sweetness in the cake itself and the icing - so I found myself nodding in agreement with everything Kevin wrote.

There are certain cultural differences that exist regarding cake as well. I remember the first time I ate cake in Korea (a few days after first arriving here), I noticed that my Korean co-workers were eating it with chopsticks. I thought, "Well that's different." Seconds after thinking that, one of these co-workers started laughing and pointing at me, saying, "He's using a spoon! That's so funny!" (thinking of those days, I just reminisced about the first wedding I attended in Korea here. It still rates as the weirdest one I've been to, other perhaps than a traditional wedding... at Lotte World).

Several years later in an adult class, which was mostly made up of middle school girls, a student bought a cake for my birthday, and after I blew out the candles, one of the girls scooped up a bit of icing from the cake and smeared it on my cheek. I'd never seen this before, but when I asked them, "Why are you putting icing on my cheek - ok, now make both cheeks?" they told me that it was very common for people to do that at birthday parties. Since then, I've seen it happen a few times. Some of my male Korean friends have told me that they like to mash the entire cake into their friends' faces on their birthdays.

Though I may not be a big fan of western style cakes sold in Korea, I can't help but think that mashing a piece into someone's face is no way to treat a cake. On the other hand, between the amount of uneaten sidedishes that are left behind when out for dinner in restaurants, and the requirement for anju to be ordered when drinking (even if no one is hungry), enormous amounts of food get wasted in Korean restaurants to begin with (at least, you hope those uneaten side dishes are going into the garbage). So perhaps wasting pieces of cake isn't considered to be a big deal by younger people who have grown up in relative affluence. Not that wasting food doesn't happen elsewhere, of course, but I've never seen someone order food in Canada and leave it untouched without taking it home, something I've seen many times here (when people are compelled to order anju at a bar even though they might have eaten already).

Coming up next - a new fad that is sweeping the nation:
Wasting food!

There may be another reason, which I thought of the other day. A week ago my friend and I realized we'd missed another friend's birthday, so I decided to make a cake for him the next time we went to his restaurant. I'm not sure if you can buy cake mixes at Hannam supermarket or such places, but I have a few cake mixes brought from home (and I have a small oven) so I made a cake and figured out how to make boiled icing (though the internet page with the recipe didn't emphasize the need to ice the cake as soon as you finish making the icing. As a result, the icing looked as haphazard as hardened lava, though it tasted fine. At any rate, I took it to the restaurant and pulled it out when my friend wasn't too busy with customers. After cutting it into pieces, a Korean friend who had had quite a bit to drink picked up a piece and motioned my friend over. I guess the beer had dulled my senses, because for some reason, in the second or two that this all occurred, I thought he was going to feed it to him (as in 'shove it in his mouth'). But no. Instead he shoved it into his face, it fell on the floor, and my drunken friend fell forward and spilled beer everywhere, apparently sending some onto the next table. Now, seeing as this was not a cake you could buy, I would imagine, anywhere in Korea, and seeing it was something I had made myself, I wasn't entirely happy that he'd basically just tossed a piece away (I probably would have been less happy at that moment if I'd noticed that he'd spilled beer onto the plate the cake was on, but a friend quickly dumped the beer out before anyone noticed, only telling me about it later). Now, at any birthday party I've seen happen at my friend's restaurant, people almost always share cake with the other customers. Since we'd annoyed the people at the next table, my friend gave them some cake to make amends, and I soon realized that, thought I'd made the cake for his (late) birthday, he hadn't even had a piece yet, so I managed to secure a tiny piece for him. I'm glad he liked it, but I wish he'd had more than just a spoonful.

The point of all this? I think it's pretty rare for Koreans to make cakes themselves, so the cake that gets smeared on people has been purchased somewhere. From the experience I had, the question that arises is this: If people normally made their own cakes here, would they be as ready to waste their own handiwork? Or can smearing cake on people's faces be just be seen as an aspect of the large scale waste of food that goes on in Korea to begin with?

'Tell me' the effect this will have...

After it was suggested that a celebrity may have taken part in a sex tape, members of the public are having a hard time trusting actors and singers. Yesterday, the actors seen above were filmed with cell phone cameras and digital cameras to ensure that nothing inappropriate occured while they posed with a child. Both later broke down and admitted they had lied about their university degrees.

While many articles have appeared insinuating that others in the celebrity community are as guilty of such crimes as the singer who may have appeared in a sex video, it appears many young people haven't received the proper education.


On Saturday, in an event that shocked the nation, hundreds of girls protested in front of S&M Entertainment demanding that boy band Superjunior date girls no older than 13 years old. After an agonizing debate, the group apparently gave into the protesters demands. After disappearing upstairs for 10 minutes, a number of girls left with what were said to be vouchers to Myeong-dong area stores in their possession.

An unnamed source at the Ministry of Information and Communication said that he was mystified as to how these pop stars could have behaved in such a way. He was also concerned about the behavior of the throngs of teenaged girls.

"We've done so much to discourage prostitution involving underaged girls," he said. He went on to describe the MIC's recent campaign, which involved concerts on university campuses* in an effort to counter the rising trend of men in their early twenties procuring underaged prostitutes. An advertising campaign also took place.

"They could be your daughters or younger sisters.
Do you really find such girls attractive?"

The spokesperson hinted that resignations within the ministry may occur within the next few days. "Many thought that using the Wondergirls in an ad campaign against teenage prostitution would be a good idea..." he said, his voice trailing off as a smile crept across his face.




* But really, do skip to 7:30 here and wonder just how much I'm taking the piss.

Musical odds and ends

I noticed that Mark over at Korea Pop Wars had put up links to some old Korean videos/live performances which are well worth watching. Worth noting is the youtube user who posted them, orienkorean. Following that link to his profile will turn up hundreds of Korean indie rock videos (from bands you've probably never heard of), as well as some older pop/rock music as well. Some more older music is also linked to here (and some of it is referred to in an older post of mine here).

One video he posted was the following, by byul (not female singer). Byul is an indie pop/electronic band who are also involved in design (every cd comes with a book of photos and art). Below is apparently the only video they've done, which is for one of the two songs they contributed to the 2001 movie "Take Care of My Cat" (they also did the soundtrack for "Cat" director Jeong Jae-eun's short "The Man with the Affair" from the 2003 omnibus "If you were me"). Their new cd/magazine is out on Wednesday.



Worth noting is that a few years ago at Koreanfilm.org, Darcy mentioned how he thought Wong Kar-wai's 1994 film Chungking Express did a good job of capturing what Hong Kong is like, and asked what Korean film captured what Korea was like. Take Care of My Cat was mentioned by many as being such a film, capturing as it does affluence and poverty, Seoul and Incheon, dance clubs and crumbling hovels, airports and police stations, text messages and migrant workers, and homeless and handicapped people.

3rd Line Butterfly is another good local indie band, though it's been three years since their last cd came out (which was far beyond what their other releases had hinted at). Someone once described them as 'Sonic Youth meets Sanullim", but you'd be wrong not to include the Velvet Underground as a rather large influence on the last cd. Anyways, here's the song '29, Suddenly'.



There's lots of other videos out there as well, something I've just started to notice in the last month. As for 3rd Line Butterfly, this song is pretty good too. I rather like Delispice's first cd, a song from which can be found here. 우리는 속옷도 생겼고 여자도 늘었다네 (known as the "Underwear Band" is also quite good; I set this video to their music. Oh, and I just thought of the group Gong Myeong, who I saw at the SSamzi sound festival in 2001 - a video of one of their performances can be found here. Their first cd is quite good, but their second cd rates as one of the most disappointing I've ever heard.

As for older stuff, there are a few videos of Sanullim playing live which are well worth a watch, such this one, and this as well. The second song in the first link sounded very familiar the first time I heard Sanullim's second album. It was then I realized I'd seen the guitarist play live at the cine-rock night at PiFan in Bucheon back in 2001, though I didn't know who he was at the time. Needless to say, their second album (from 1978) rocks, and I was pretty happy when a little soju bar in Apgujeong which had only lps played the entire album after I requested one song from it. Damn, I miss my vinyl collection.

For something fun (if you like Takako Minekawa and the anime Azumanga Daioh (Ajumanga Daewang in Korea)), this video (made by a fan) is pure genius. This official video is amusing as well. On the Japanese tip, off the top of my head there's also Cornelius, Salyu, Supercar, and for when you really want to piss off the neighbours, Melt Banana.

For something entirely idiotic, be sure to read this. Several hundred Superjunior fans gathered in front of SM entertainment to protest the inclusion of a new member to the group. And here I thought the protest by students against people gathering acorns in the forest (because the squirrels will starve) was dumb. Nope. These fans win the prize for the most moronic protest I've ever heard of. Also, Popseoul wonders why the hell the Wondergirl's song 'Tell Me' is so popular (do watch the video). In the past two weeks I've had numerous students either sing the song, write the lyrics in their notebooks, or ask me "What does 'tell me' mean?" ("Tell me why you want to know" would be a good answer). It is undeniably catchy, but I'm left needing something to drown it out. How about going back to it's source? Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express, Suicide's Ghost Rider, or, especially, Donna Summer's I Feel Love (all from 1977-78 - unless you want to go back to the Silver Apples in 1968).

Anyways, I just discovered this documentary on Nick Drake, so it's probably best to end this now.

Haunted houses, etc

After reading the story of Jelly's Halloween party at I got 2 shoes, I thought I'd post a few pics of the haunted house I've done every year for the past few years. It's evolved a bit but last year I found the most efficient way of making it work and just copied it again this year (referring to photos taken last year to help me out). It only took myself and another person an hour and a half to put it together this year. The webcam shot below shows the layout:

There should be black fabric was hanging down in several places; luckily it's not at the moment, or it would be more difficult to see everything. Picnic mats needed to be hung up to block out the light from the windows. Anyways, the kids enter from the right (that's the door in the foreground) and, guided by me with a flashlight, proceed to the bottom left, where they are shown the ghost at the top of this post, which is wrapped around a wall-mounted fan, so it has the appearance of moving. Then, behind the couch is a tunnel that they have to crawl through. I meet them at the other end tell them to look behind them, where they see this on the ceiling:


I've attached fishing line to it's arm and looped it over a push pin above it, so with a few tugs it looks like the arm is moving (well, it's startles some of the kids, I guess). Then the 'graveyard' is pointed out at the other end of the room, and as we start for the door one of my co-workers comes up behind them in a... Darth Maul mask. Unfortunately, the other, better, masks disappeared this year. Then as they run from him, another teacher chases them, and with blood makeup, bandages, and fake fangs, she is pretty scary. They I herd them out the door (where they get candy) and wait for the next group. What's missing in the photos is the music, which makes all the difference. I use the track "Aumgn", from Krautrock band Can's 1971 album "Tago Mago". It's about 10 minutes long, but an excerpt is here. Needless to say, it's an incredibly creepy track, and sets the mood as soon as you enter the room. Once the students enter the tunnel, I turn on another cd player next to the tunnel, which plays a track from Current 93's "Dog Blood Rising", so as to startle them even further (who knew declassified CIA psychological torture manuals could be so useful? Just kidding - it's not like we throw bags over their heads and send them to Syria; a flight to Uzbekistan is much cheaper). Anyways, the reactions range from jaded fourth graders who laugh at everything to younger kids who.... laugh at everything. Until they see the bandage-wrapped phantom, that is, and then they shriek like the little children they are. Heh heh heh. My favourite was the kid who laughed at everything and then when he saw her covered his eyes and ran away. I assume someone must have guided him to the classroom across the hall, because when I popped my head in a minute or two later, he was still covering his eyes.

And that's how we do Halloween in my neighbourhood.

Sorry for lack of posts; I've been down with a cold and just plain busy. I've got a half-dozen posts sitting in draft form - I just have to finish them. Unfortunately, current events always give me something else to write about...

Mobilizing intervention

As I mentioned here quite some time ago, anthropologist Linda Louis writes in Laying Claim to the Memory of May that

As a social process, the Korean cultural scenario for conflict resolution involves the public expression of grievances by both sides, as a means of informing the neighbors, of shaping local consensus, and of mustering popular support for each side of the argument.

It is above all else also a process that relies heavily on the involvement of a third, mediating party for a sucessful outcome. In fact, it is through the public airing of the dispute that the antagonists solicit the intervention of others. Intense verbal aggression and the public expression of grievances serve not as a prelude to physical violence, but function to mobilize third party intervention, to prevent just such an escalation in the dispute.

On February 16 of this year, an inmate was beaten by a prison guard and after seeing the inmate's swollen face, his father raised the issue with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, as reported here (as well as here):

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has made public a video clip of an Anyang Prison guard beating an inmate after the prison rejected the commission's call for the guard to be disciplined. "Even though it is clear that the prison guard beat the prisoner, Anyang Prison has refused to discipline the guard. Therefore, the NHRC has decided to release the video clip and let Korean citizens as a third party decide whether the incident is abuse or not," the human rights watchdog said on Sunday.

Nice to see the NHRC mobilizing third party intervention (though some think it's illegal here). Feel free to take part yourself:

Score with Samsung Card!

The photo below was linked to by the Marmot a few weeks ago and the only thing I could think of when I looked at it was how odd the woman's stance is. If she had been standing next to a Korean man I probably wouldn't have noticed it, but the juxtaposition with a foreigner really made her contrived pose stand out. Her pose is like something out of a Renaissance painting depicted Mary as purity defined, but her smile and the tilt of her head is more subservient, as if she was straight out of that Manet painting of the scene in a room salon (as the night drags on, of course, it's harder to maintain that smile). So is that what whoever was in charge of this photo shoot wanted to convey - purity and subservience?


A few days later I saw other images of Korean speaking women - except that this time they were foreigners.



I saw this advertisement in the theatre before watching the Simpsons Movie, so it really stood out, and things that look small in that video were very obvious on the big screen. My friend pointed out that the blond is a Canadian who's appeared on Minyeodeuli Suda (I immediately assumed they were from that show). A Korean comedian on Misuda was at the center of an uproar back in December (though the person most directly affected by this didn't show any anger over it when she was later interviewed). The show has apparently gone through a metomorphosis over the past few months, as discussed over at the Paint Roller blog. A few other ads featuring the women who have appeared on this show can be found here and here.

Anyways, regarding the ad above, there's not much more to say that it's really, really bizarre, especially looking at the Canadian woman. I can't say I've ever met a Canadian woman who acts anything like what we see above, though I have seen Korean women (especially in their teens and twenties) act in a similar manner, though nowhere near as exaggerated as in the ad. It reminds me of a conversation I had the other night discussing to what degree foreigners adopt (or copy, really) Korean mannerisms as they get to know the culture and language, and to what degree they retain their own cultures' mannerisms, such as when they add a slight bow to a handshake, or at the more elaborate end, learn Korean drinking ettiquette, which is quite a bit more complex than, say, Canadian ettiquette, but is necessary to have some knowledge of in order not to offend people. Now most likely, the behavior in this ad is more heavily influenced by its producers than by the fact that these women have acquired some of the mannerisms of Korean women their age, but at the same time, they would have had to draw on some sort of experience (perhaps just by watching TV) to be making the exaggerated facial expressions they did.



In the end, several questions are raised. I know the Canadian woman is not acting like a Canadian woman normally would, so I'm left assuming they're acting like Korean women; but what kind of Korean women? Or are they supposed to represent how Koreans think foreign women should act when they interact with Korean men (when speaking Korean)? Someone could really have fun writing about the construction of feminity in Korea in part by looking at this ad and looking at the whole Minyeoduli phenomenom. I'm not going to, mind you, but it's worth a few observations. Again, like the photo at the top of this post, where the Korean woman's pose stood out for me due to her standing next to a foreigner, in the ad above the behavior stands out and seems strange because it's being performed by foreign women. One thing that stands out is how childish they seem; at a guess, one might assume they're middle school girls standing outside SBS studios waiting for Superjunior to appear, not women in their twenties hearing about the benefits of using Samsung Card. It goes without saying that it's just an ad and that ads always construct fantasies of one type or another, but it's worth asking just what kind of fantasy they're trying to depict. Now, I rarely watch TV, but from what I've seen it seems Korean TV ads don't have the self-parody or sometimes a slightly subversive edge you find on North American TV (correct me if I'm wrong). A few people I know in marketing have told me ad companies often make one or two ads, and the good, funny ones are often turned down in favor of more 'straight and narrow' ads. The rejected ads do turn up from time to time after being leaked, such as this one (probably not safe for work).

Anyways, back to the kind of fantasy being depicted in the ad, or at least the depiction of these women, who speak and act Korean but are foreign, who seem to be acting like they're ten years younger than they are, and who are going way over the top in their depiction and looking quite silly, especially in the still shots:


Of course, making people look silly is pretty common; though foreigners are treated to this quite often, they shouldn't go thinking they're they only ones being targeted by any stretch of the imagination (oddly enough this clip caused a bit of a scandal). It's not so much the silliness or frivolousness of the ad that stood out, but once again the subservience, especially once the 'unattractive' middle-aged guy begins talking to the women and the women react by fawning over him Samsung Card. It happens so fast in the ad that I didn't notice what happens at the end until I saw this screenshot :


I'll leave it to you to imagine where they might be off to next. Perhaps someone in the marketing department came up with the slogan "Samsung Card: Helps average middle-aged men score with foreign women who act like they're thirteen," but decided to change it.


On a somewhat related note, there are lots of foreign actors doing ads on Japanese TV here. The Arnold Schwarzenegger ones have to be seen to be believed.

Happy Chuseok!

I hope everyone's having a happy holiday!


Why not follow Park Chung-hee's example and play yut with your loved ones?

Craters and redevelopment in Yeouido

At 8:50 pm on September 19, a retaining wall at a construction site in Yeouido collapsed, causing a crater to open under a street next to the site.


The Korea Times wrote that

A two lane-road next to the construction site of the International Finance Center in Yeouido, Seoul, on Wednesday, collapsed, causing a 50-meter-long, 20-meter-wide and 30 meters-deep crater. The pit swallowed five trucks and resulted in severed electric cables causing power supply stoppages on 48 buildings nearby. Also a water main burst causing the area to be flooded. The power outage caused traffic signal failures and severe traffic jams continued till Thursday morning. A rescue team managed to save a 59-year-old construction worker, Lee, from the site. Police speculated that the ground became weak due to digging at the construction site combined with the downpour.

Korea Beat also translated an article about it:

A Mr. Kim (42), who witnessed the incident, said, “nearby buildings suddenly lost power and then with a roaring sound the road by the construction site started to sink and then caved in, and cars parked on the street fell into the hole.”

I couldn't help but think that the photo above reminded me of the collapse of a retaining wall at Gajwa station on June 3 of this year:


This picture accompanied the Korea Beat translation, but in the comments section it was suggested that it was a fake, and that the cars at left were photoshopped.


However those same cars can be seen in the crater after falling in:


The car with its lights on, the gray car with the sunroof and the black SUV seen above are all in the crater.


The car can be seen from another angle:


It seems the SUV didn't fare well:


Here's another shot from the same vantage point of the photo above. Note the broken pipe with water pouring from it and the broken hoarding.


This shot was produced by zooming in quite a bit, as the following shot shows:


There was indeed an SUV teetering above the grey car with the sunroof, however; the SUV is just visible at the top of this picture:


Both can be seen in this video. Below is a screenshot from a similar video:


As you can see below, the odd lighting in the picture in question is likely due to the fact that large spotlights were shining into the pit.


Mix this with a slightly grainy quality which is perhaps due to the zoom and you get a photo which looks odd enough to be considered fake. At any rate, this is the second time in five months that craters have appeared in Seoul next to a large construction site. It's been very lucky that no one has been killed in these cave-ins, like in this accident. Many deaths have occured this year, however, as this July 29 Korea Times article relates:

According to the Labor Ministry, some 2.8 million are employed by the construction industry. This year alone, 157 were killed and 3,748 were injured, up from 19 deaths and 362 injuries of the same period of last year.

Here's a shot of the construction site for the International Finance Center, with the crater in the foreground:


Some earlier shots of its construction were taken by Jon at I'm a Seoul Man. He also has photos of and links to other projects on Yeouido, as well as predictions as to where future redevelopment there will take place. The IFC and Parc 1 are being built on the last empty lots in Yeouido, and are shown below (the crater is marked in red).


Below is a rendering of what Yeouido's skyline will look like when the IFC is done (I imagine there will be some delays due to this collapse).


What's missing in the above photo is a rendering of the Parc1 project, which will sit between the IFC and the twin towers at left. This rendering shows Parc1 with a strange version of the IFC next to it:


Yeouido's skyline will be getting a bit of a boost over the next few years. Needless to say it looks quite a bit different now than it did in 1952, when it was used as an airport during the Korean War (more photos by this photographer of Yeouido, Seoul and Gimpo Airport during the Korean War can be found here)...


...or in 1968, when the levee was built around the island to prepare it for development...


...or in 1971, when the Shibum apartments were completed (note the National Assembly being built in the background).


More information on Yeouido Airport can be found here.

A brief history of scapegoating English teachers in Korea

[Update, January 2010] An earlier media fueled 'gust of popular feeling' against foreign language teachers took place in 1984. See the following posts:

Part 1: Le Monde and what came before
Part 2: Korea is "Ali Baba's" Cave
Part 3: Seoul Should not be a Workplace for Parisians
Part 4: In private foreign language classes, there are a lot of ‘fraud teachers’
Part 5: Jibberish
Part 6: 'I Want to Strike it Rich in Seoul Too' - Continuous Job Inquiries by the French
Part 7: Foreigners Enjoy Better Life With Mother Tongues
Part 8: Foreigners and Foreign Languages
Part 9: Sickening Face
Part 10: Barking Up the Wrong Tree
Part 11: The First Sanctions on Foreigners Working Illegally
Part 12: More on the 1983 Law "Limiting Aliens' Residence Period"
Part 13: All Private Lessons by Foreigners Prohibited
Part 14: Institutes Asked to Hire Eligible Foreign Teachers
Part 15: "Seoul Wind"
Part 16: Foreign Language Teacher Shortage


[Update, April 2009] The first news report about a foreign teacher being arrested for drugs in Korea was in May 1994. The teacher was Cullen Thomas, who served three years in prison and went on to write the book Brother One Cell about his experiences.

[Update] - Someday I'll update this, but for now, several events from the fall of 2007 are related here.

[Update] - There are updates for January 1997, February 1998 and April 2007.


What follows isn't necessarily all scapegoating, but a look at how the Korean media have reported on and represented foreign English teachers here since 1996, which also handily helps provide a brief history of this foreign community as well. A big hat tip to the Marmot for his translations of articles over the past few years, as well as Mongdori, where videos of several TV broadcasts can be found (which saved me the trouble of uploading the 2005 SBS show to Youtube myself).[Note: those videos are now gone.]

One of the hardest things to pin down are the numbers of teachers. For example, on July 19, 1997, the Korea Times reported that, according to the Education Ministry, there were 3,930 legally employed foreign English teachers in Korea, though the police suggested that there were 20,000 illegally employed teachers.

[Update, Feb. 2011: Incorrect figures removed, replaced with figures from here.

Here are the number of people here on E-2 visas since 2000:

2000 - 6,414
2002 - 10,864
2004 - 11,344
2005 - 12,439
2006 - 15,001
2007 - 17,721
2008 - 19,771
2009 - 22,642
2010.6 - 23,600

(from KIS stats, and from here, here, and here.)]

If you want to go back to the very beginning, the first English classes were in mission schools founded in the 1880s and 1890s. Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, English was taught by in schools by Peace Corps volunteers. In the early 1990s, numerous English language institutes began to appear in Korea which hired university graduates from English speaking countries to teach conversation classes. These weren't the only foreigners flooding into the country, of course; hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from China and southeast Asia would begin working in Korea in the 1990s as well. The ESL industry expanded rapidly, and within a few years there was a high demand for native speakers - or any English speakers, if the institutes could get away with it - in not only language institutes, but also for private lessons and in other institutes offering art, math or taekwondo classes which hired them to attract students. There were other options as well, as is written here:

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

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

So, just to make that clear, it wasn't just the language institutes which might screw over prospective teachers - working within a government-run program ran the risk of similar treatment.

Using the KINDS database (which goes back as far as 1990 for Korean language articles or 1995 for English language articles (an option which seems to no longer work)) an early article I found was about a drug arrest of an English teacher. This was actually the first news report about a foreign teacher being arrested for drugs in Korea, and was in May 1994. The teacher was Cullen Thomas, who served three and a half years in prison and went on to write the book Brother One Cell about his experiences.

The first English language article I found about English teachers was from March 9, 1996, titled "American English Teacher Arrested for Smoking Hemp".

The airmailed marijuana was detected at Kimpo Customs at Kimpo International Airport, which notified it to the prosecutor's office. The prosecutor's office, in a "controlled delivery," let the parcel delivered to Syed [yes, they use his full name] Tuesday. Investigators then staked out his residence to monitor Syed's activities. After it was ascertained that he had smoked it on four occasions with the girlfriend, they arrested him, according to the prosecutor.

Note that the girlfriend wasn't arrested. It seems such arrests weren't so common at that time; this teacher was just one of 23 foreigners busted for drugs in 1996, according to an October 30, 1997 Korea Times article:

Narcotic-related arrests of foreigners which stood at 14 in 1995, increased by 64.3 percent to 23 last year and jumped to 37 as of the end of September this year [...] Those arrested with the drug, were mainly Americans before 1995, but it was Nigerians who comprised the largest category in 1996 [,though] cases committed by Iranians and Pakistanis are increasing this year.

Apparently, English teachers commit other crimes as well, as the Korea Times reported on January 11, 1997:

A patrolman shot an American English tutor who was allegedly resisting him after stabbing one of his American colleagues while intoxicated early yesterday morning in [Seongnam]. [The teacher, who teaches] English at Pagoda Junior Institute, was shot in the left thigh and has been treated at Songnam Hospital. He is suspected of stabbing one of his fellow English instructors (24), three times in the face during a quarrel that arose while they were drinking together at his house. [...] Rossi's Korean fiance said he was "unarmed" when the policeman fired at him. [...] A police officer said that the patrolman repeatedly ordered Rossi to stop, but he continued to resist and would not put down his knife, and the cop shot him after firing two blank shots.

[Update] The victim's version of the story appears in the comments:

The way he told it, he was celebrating the end of his contract at his friend's apartment down the hall from his room. He had a ticket booked to leave the next day. They got pretty drunk. He figured someone called the cops because of the noise (they had been talking really loudly in English). At one point in the evening, as people had left and they both were tidying up the room, he said his friend tripped and landed arms first in the glass of the sliding door, breaking it and cutting himself. He claimed it wasn't too serious, just a few minor cuts, so his friend cleaned himself up with a towel, threw on the floor, and went to bed. The teacher was supposedly sweeping the floor when a cop got there. He said the cop saw the Korean passed out from drinking so much, saw the bloodied towel, the white guy, and put 2 and 2 together and came up with five. The cop pulled out his gun and aimed it at the teacher who claimed he quickly raised his hands and shouted 'Chingu, chingu!'. The cop shot two or three times, hitting him in the leg. He claimed he was denied treatment at the hospital because the insurance wouldn't cover injuries incurred during an arrest. I supposedly took a day or two before he could come up with the money. By then, it was too late. He had apparently developed nerve damage, which he claimed was caused by the delay in treatment.

A February 2 Korea Herald article described 'itinerant' teachers.

Korea has overtaken Japan as the favorite destination for those looking to earn quick money by teaching English. Itinerant teachers now far outnumber their better-qualified and legally-contracted counterparts who almost always earn far less. One native speaker, who asked for anonymity said that he can spend half of the year in Seoul doing illegal teaching and the other half on various beaches around the world and still saves thousands of dollars. Such teachers are clearly not the answer to the high level of demand for English teachers. But while this demand and its consequent high wages persist, they will continue to flock to Korea.

A February 3 Korea Herald article described how universities were "reducing the salaries, benefits and status of their foreign instructors," by creating 5 month contracts and paying per class taught. A letter in the Korea Herald on April 25, 1997 points out the other, more popular reason for English teachers being arrested these days:

I have met several individuals working here that have purchased mail-order diplomas from various sham operations. With these diplomas they pass themselves off as qualified instructors and gain access to the same positions that qualified ESL teachers are due.[...] I sincerely hope that the charlatans, scam artists, tourists and pitiful old hippies that have been employed to teach English in Korea will either leave or get training and certification which will justify their existence here in Korea.

A month later, a May 31, 1997 Korea Times article described these teachers:

Tales of easy money have attracted "cowboy teachers," unqualified foreigners who ride into town and try to cash in, giving legitimate teachers a bad name in the process.

The name of this article was "Immigration Cracks Down on Illegal English Teachers":

Between mid-December and the end of April, 315 illegal teachers were deported after sweeps of foreign language institutes (hagwon) and elementary schools[, when authorities used methods such as] spotting and trailing foreigners on the street [and] talking to security guards and staking out the lobbies of apartment buildings where teachers give expensive private lessons.

The reason for this crackdown is mentioned here:

In 1995, English teaching jobs began to proliferate and foreigners swarmed to Korea. Most with work visas found their job situation unacceptable, quit, and either went home or began working on a tourist visa (which is highly illegal). Soon, the number of illegal English teachers greatly exceeded the number of legal teachers. This influx of illegal workers, in combination with the declining health of the economy in 1997, prompted Korean immigration to start seriously pursuing foreign teachers working on a tourist visa.

Not all of the articles from that time dwell on illegal teachers, however. A July 8, 1997 Korea Times article described "the estimated 800 angry and disillusioned American teachers who lodge complaints about broken promises and mistreatment by Korea's hagwons and schools every year" with the U.S. embassy.

For more than three years, the Chief of American Citizens' Services, Katheryn S.R. Berck, has mailed a warning letter to all who inquire about teaching English in Korea that reads: "Due to the growing number and seriousness of problems experienced by American citizens teaching English in Korea, we counsel against taking such employment even at reputable colleges and universities..."

Berck arrived as the Chief of American Services in the late summer of 1993. Six months later, she said, the reasons for warning Americans about teaching in Korea were obvious: "We were so exhausted with hearing people's horror stories, we put this out." Berck checked with other popular locations for foreign English teachers around the world and Korea is the only bad apple in the ESL market, cataloging hundreds more complaints than any other country, she said.

On July 18, 1997, it was reported that 141 illegal English teachers who had entered Korea on a tourist visa were to be deported. In a Korea Times article the next day, it was said that this was due to the arrest of five (Korean) men who ran a recruiting agency.

During the course of their investigation police discovered that 141 out of the 1,019 foreigners the agents found teaching jobs for were working on tourist visas.[...] 645 institutes offering art, math or taekwondo classes hired them to attract students.[...]

Saying there are over 20,000 illegally employed foreign language teachers in the nation, the police are stepping up their crackdown on them. According to the latest statistics compiled by the Education Ministry, there were 4,171 legal foreign language teachers as of the end of last month. Ninety-four percent or 3,930 of them teach English[.]

A Korea Herald article from October 13 said that a "report, submitted by the Seoul Office of Education to the National Assembly, indicated 146 English language institutes [in Seoul], including three foreign-owned ones, had enrollment of 24,928 kids under the age of 12 as of the end of August." A Korea Times article from November 2 gave some numbers, describing "the 464 Language Institutes in Seoul that employ over 1,800 foreign teachers". It's obvious from the July article that more than language institutes were hiring them (not to mention privates).

A November 6 Korea Times article titled "Korea's International Image Faces Abuse in Cyberspace" shows that some English teachers in Korea weren't happy with their treatment in Korea.

A group calling themselves the American English Teachers Attacking Corrupt Koreans (AETACK) have sent random inflammatory anti-Korean electronic mail to subscribers on the Internet. In one poison missive sent to members of America On Line entitled"No Visa Waiver For Korea," the message said "(We) feel that Korea does not deserve this privilege because of its behavior toward us and other foreign workers," adding that "the Korean economy is sinking into debt oblivion so they don't have much money to spend...there is also the threat of opening the door to Korean Mafia-style criminals who are acknowledged to be a problem by the FBI."

Some other teachers thought this was just an excuse to 'bash Koreans', while a Korean American compared them to the KKK. On February 2, 1998, the New York Times published an article about the taboo against interracial relationships in Korea, describing the lengths some families would go to keep their daughters away from their foreign boyfriends ("The parents locked the girlfriend in the home for 10 days, telling her to call in sick at her job. Then they alternated interrogations with lectures.") and typical attitudes (''A Korean woman must never date or marry a foreign guy,'' said Kim Hee Sup, a 34-year-old male office worker. ''All Koreans should try to maintain racial purity.'' ), though it wasn't all bad:

''It used to be pretty bad -- I'd get things thrown at me if I were dancing with a Korean girl,'' said Peter Keusgen, a 29-year-old Australian stock analyst who has spent most of the last six years in South Korea. ''Coming from that low base, Korea's come a long way. People are much more accepting now.''

At any rate, the number of teachers would drop as the Korean economy collapsed and the Korean government asked the IMF for a bailout on November 22. A Korea Times article from December 17, 1997 is titled "English Teachers Mull Bailout of Their Own From Current Crisis".

What was once a land of plenty that offered money, fast-paced challenges and a chance to experience a foreign culture has now become a trap for thousands of foreign English teachers in South Korea who came over here for a little adventure and a way to pay off the heavy burden of student loans but who in a matter of days, saw their salaries cut in half and their very jobs at risk because of the plunge in the value of the won against the dollar.

By far, the overwhelming reason Korea has drawn more than 10,000 legally accredited English teachers and an even greater number of "illegal" teachers is money.[...] "Lots of teachers are planning a bailout of their own," said Mark Bray, a full-time English instructor at Taegu University. "People I know have already left and there's a saying here now: 'IMF - I-M-Flying'".

I seem to remember someone telling me the F stood for something else, but I digress. An April 1, 1998 Times article mentions that

Foreign English teachers are giving up their jobs in South Korean high schools because their pay has shrunk in value, discouraging an ambitious English education plan that started just a year ago. Education Ministry officials said 126 out of 856 native English-speaking teachers quit as of the end of last month [and few would re-sign when their contracts ended in July].

An interesting October 1998 article in Slate by teacher Rolf Potts looked at the expat scene in Busan before and after the currency crash:

To the untrained foreign eye, Pusan still looks like a manic boomtown. But the Americans and Canadians who have lived here for the last couple of years know better. This is because the seasoned expatriates of Pusan know their garbage.

Just over one year ago, street-side garbage piles provided an almost inexhaustible supply of perfectly usable desks, couches, tables, television sets, electric fans and personal computers for itinerant foreigners looking to stock a rented room for a few months. At the time, Koreans were still giddy from three decades of steady economic growth, and throwing out perfectly usable electronics and home furnishings was a sly act of one-upmanship among the middle class. Koreans looked on in haughty bemusement as young Americans enthusiastically carted garbage back to their apartments.

These days, what's left of Pusan's expatriate community has all but given up dumpster diving. [...] These days, the garbage of Pusan is just garbage.

One thing that's interesting is that he refers to the experience of thousands of foreigners (anyone with "a native understanding of English, a college degree and a pulse") coming to Korea to teach English in the past tense, as if it was all over and Korea's economy would never recover. English teachers would soon begin to return, though it would take a few years for the number of teachers to build up again to pre-economic crisis levels. A December 14, 1998 Korea Times article describes this:

Though many were frightened away by the won's seeming collapse, those who have remained in Korea have watched the won make a modest recovery and have seen demand for their services skyrocket as of late. In fact, the need for teachers is so great that even some of the teachers who left are returning.

There are now so many unfilled teaching positions here that Dave's ESL Cafe, a popular website with the ESL crowd, recently started a new web page just for Korean jobs.[...] Where at one point [there were] less than 40 Korean job postings per month, over the past month alone [there have been] over 120.

[One teacher says that] "Right now, you don't even have to have graduated from high school. If you come over here on a tourist visa, you'll be guaranteed work, and a lot of money, too."

Immigration did not fail to notice this, of course, and the Korea Times reported on April 9, 1999 that 71 foreigners would be fined and deported for teaching English without a proper work visa. Oddly enough, I could find no stories in the Times or the Herald in 2000 about foreign teachers, and only one in 2001, from March 7, which is about that other reason why English teachers sometimes make the news:

Four foreigners who teach English to kids between four and seven at an English kindergarten in the Gangam area in Seoul were arrested for smoking marijuana Wednesday. [...] According to the prosecution, they argued that they were not under the influence of the drug when teaching kids in the morning as they usually smoked in the evenings. An official at the kindergarten said that even smoking is not allowed at the institute and that officials had no idea that some instructors were on marijuana.

There's nothing like conflating "smoked pot in their free time" with "they taught innocent children and no one even noticed they were on marijuana". As luck would have it, the next news item would be almost a year later, and it involved another drug bust, as a February 19, 2002 Korea Times article reveals:

The Pusan Metropolitan Police Agency said the foreign suspects, most of whom are working as lecturers in universities and language institutes in Pusan city, have been getting together in a foreigners-only cafe in Changchon-dong to have marijuana parties. Seven foreign offenders, including an American, two Canadians and a New Zealander, as well as four Koreans including the 38-year-old owner of the cafe, have already been taken into custody. "We are now tracking 10 other foreign suspects in this case via their workplaces and other channels,'' a police officer said.

On Saturday, police raided the cafe in question following a tip that about 60 foreigners and Koreans there were in a state of hallucination after taking marijuana. Seven foreign offenders were caught red-handed.

"State of hallucination"? I guess they have to play up something, don't they? At the time I received a forwarded email from a teacher in Busan which gave more information about the arrest. It stated that when police raided the bar, they came with a list of names that informants had given them. Koreans were told to leave, and every foreigner's ID was checked. Those whose names were on the list, and those without ID, were given a urine test. An article about Busan expat scene and the aftermath of this drug bust (as well as an interview with the director of the upcoming film "Expats", which is set in Busan) can be found here.

On July 7, 2002, John Hare, writing in "Thoughts of the Times," shared his opinion on English teachers in Korea:

Foreign feral freaks are the toxic effluent of a culture that has, for all the best intentions, and despite many resultant achievements and public benefits, uniquely put the individual and his needs and concerns first. They are entirely, freakishly separated from the society, the world and the universe to which they rightfully belong, utterly selfish and willful and indulgent of all appetites, creepily sensual, crass, obnoxious, disrespectful, irresponsible; in a word, ignoble.

In fact, not a few Koreans mix with the foreign rabble at the various rat-hole drinking establishments, whether out of morbid curiosity or fascinated disgust _ it is academic to speculate _ before returning home to their long showers.

Who needs the Korean media when this guy's around? Moving from teachers to hagwons, on September 5, 2002, the Korea Times reported that

Six children’s English education institutes have carried out false and misleading advertisings or forced unfair deals onto their member outlets. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) yesterday ordered the six firms - Kizclub, Wonderland, LCI Kids Club, ECC, Kids Herald School and Swaton Language School – to cease the illegal practices.

A September 25, 2002 article about the plans of the Youth Commission to release photos of people convicted of sex crimes with minors mentioned a disturbing fact:

An American English teacher convicted of attempting to rape one of his students is also on the list, along with a security guard who surreptitiously videotaped underage girls with three other foreigners.

There's no more mention of those other foreigners, but I'm surprised that the attempted rape case didn't get more attention. It certainly would if it happened now. Speaking of sex crimes, on July 11, 2003, a person with the ID 'Lucky Guy' at koreanesl.com posted a short essay titled "How to Mollest [sic] your Students". It led to a number of complaints and angry responses by other English teachers who read it before it was buried after a few days. It would remain forgotten for a year and a half.

A July 29, 2003 Joongang Ilbo article mentions that the police had "detained 73 people in the course of 95 investigations of illegal narcotics trafficking over the past two months", but only one was a foreign English teacher; most of them were Korean students returning from overseas.

The English language press is rather sparse on news from these years (though lots of 'thoughts of English teachers working in Korea' columns can be found in the Korea Times, of course), though it's well worth remembering that other crackdowns had been going on since the 1990s against migrant workers; an especially large crackdown in 2003 and 2004 certainly got a lot of attention.

In early August 2004 the press would report on a drunk Canadian who beat up police in a police station in Pohang. At that time a post at Idiot's Collective related numerous tales of...'eccentric' foreigners who have taught English here. The year ended with a Christmas tale of police busting an unlicenced employment ring which had cheated foreign teachers and public schools - a rare occasion when the sleazy businesspeople in this industry were getting negative attention.

That would change as 2004 made way for 2005, however.

On January 11, 2005, after netizens began discovering what was being written about Korean women (and especially the photos of a 'sexy costume' party from the previous November that had been posted) by English teachers on English Spectrum's 'Ask the Playboy' forum, the Joongang Ilbo published an article about the controversy, and by the next day the site had been temporarily closed down. This was only the beginning, however, as Korean netizens obviously began to search other English teacher forums for more incriminating material. This led to the discovery of the year-and-a-half-old koreanesl.com post "How to Mollest[sic] your students," which can be found here (or here).

The original post by 'lucky guy' (since deleted) was posted July 11, 2003, and the last comment to the post at that time was from August 7, 2003. The poster said that he didn't write the text of the post and copied and pasted it there to test the site's 'no censorship' policy, though it's impossible to know if this is true or false. The reaction at the time by mostly (presumably) English teachers was one of disgust and outrage. Interestingly, one of the comments from the day it was posted read, "I bet shortly I'll translate your message into Korean and list up on the 'Webmaster's Selection' for parents, employers and children." This didn't happen then, but one of the first comments left after it was rediscovered on January 13, 2005 read, "This is so fucking sick. Your site and you 'lucky guy' your going down cuz I'm disclosing all this shit on other portals." He obviously followed through on the threat, which led in the short term to one of the largest collections of emoticons like this - 凸^0^凸 - on the internet (note - do not click on the original post - it's been deleted and replaced with an obscene image). A summary of the controversy is also here.

This post by the Marmot covers much of the ensuing netizen response: A petition calling for the expulsion of 'low quality' foreign teachers, the formation of the anti-English Spectrum cafe which wanted to take legal action against English Spectrum (underscored by this announcement two months later), the announcement of a demonstration to be held in Hongdae on January 15 (which seems not to have amounted to anything), a warning from the US embasssy of "potential threats" in the Hongdae area, and the angry response of some of the Korean women in the pictures to their treatment by netizens, underscored by a January 24 Chosun Ilbo article which interviewed the owner of the bar where the photos were taken:

"Two customers were on the verge of quitting their jobs, and another was seeking psychiatric counseling,” she said Saturday. “Another customer had a job offer taken away. Our club is preparing to close."[...] "I get anonymous threatening phone calls at the club all the time. 'Why don't whores like you just die quietly,' 'Foreigners' whore! Why don't you shut down your club?' 'We will hold a picket demonstration in front of your club'... I get nervous anytime I hear the phone ring."

They also interview another woman in the photos:

"My co-workers point at me behind my back… "I don't know how they got my email address, but I get tons of emails with frightening titles, so I don't even turn on my computer these days." Another girl pictured said she was offered a secretarial position in early January, but because of the photos, the job offer was withdrawn.

Five months later another woman would receive similar treatment after refusing to clean up her dog's poop on the subway, which would lead to social concern about such "cyber terror". No such concern was directed towards the plight of these women, however. As for English teachers in general, the media had made the connections "English teacher = unqualified teacher" or "drugs" in the past to little fanfare, but with a handful of photos and some potty mouthed-bragging over sexual conquests, a new connection - "English teacher = they who screw our women" - was made, and it has proved an easy one to exploit for ratings or hits (as the Marmot noted, Dalian used the controversy in its early days to get noticed).

On February 19 the controversy over English teachers was rekindled by an episode of the SBS investigative program "I Want to Know That" which begins with a dramatization of the advice given in the "How to mollest your students" post and goes from there to depict teachers as lazy, underage-student-screwing, pot-smoking foreigners who get a free ride, especially in comparison to foreign migrant workers. Sadly, there hasn't yet been a news show in the US about "Koreans in America" which begins with a re-enactment of the Virginia Tech murders by Cho Seung-hui, whch shows just how much American journalism could stand to learn from SBS. The show is discussed here and in the Chosun Ilbo. The show was once available via Mongdori, but not anymore.

One of the results of the original uproar over English Spectrum and that following this TV show was that yet another association was made: English teacher = unqualified. Thus increasing attention was paid to English teachers teaching illegally in Korea. While this led to more spot checks on foreigners in Subway stations (or to put it another way, spot checks that were now also focusing on white foreigners), there were not as many arrests as you might think:

Illegal English teachers caught in 2005 by month

The above table (from here) shows that 240 teachers were arrested in 2005. It would be nice to have statistics from 2004, but unfortunately I don't. On March 18 NoCut News reported that two Canadian English teachers had been arrested for assault after breaking a man's jaw in a fight, and it was found that they were teaching illegally (the hagwon owner was also booked) It was later reported that "they spent 40 days in jail and were ordered to pay $30,000" to the victim (more on this case in the Guardian, and at the CBC (here and here). On April 12, NoCut News (and Yonhap) reported that two American English teachers had been arrested for teaching with fake diplomas. Also on that day a man was arrested for attempting to blackmail the women who had appeared in the party photos on English Spectrum. On April 20, The Lady Kyunghyang, the ladies' magazine of the Kyunghyang Shinmun published an article about sex with foreigners (sharing the (mostly positive) experiences of both Korean men and women), which said that the most common way to meet foreigners was at a foreign language hagwon.

Seoul Immigration announced on May 9 that "118 illegal foreign workers [including 23 English teachers, which seems to contradict the table above], 12 job brokers and the 49 locals who employed them" had been arrested, and 38 were deported. On May 17 Ohmynews posted the prison diary of an English teacher who had been arrested in Busan for teaching illegally and held in Yeosu's immigration detainment center for months (part 1, part 2). He focuses a great deal on the plight of migrant workers there and on the conditions in the center - where 10 migrant workers would die in a fire on February 11, 2007. Despite the negative media reports regarding English teachers, the Korean government announced plans on May 29 to have native English teachers in all of Korea's 2,850 middle schools by 2010.

On June 6 SBS (and a few days later, Yonhap) reported that the number of drug busts involving sending pot through the mail was increasing, and that foreigners were driving Korea's drug trade. Two months later, on August 5, the Herald Business News reported on how Hongdae had become a foreigner’s “paradise for hunting women” and that "Hongdae is now an area hot with youthful passion that has degenerated from being mixed up with foreigners." The Chosun Ilbo reported on August 16 that police had "arrested two Americans and booked 37 foreign language instructors, [and 50 owners and 27 brokers] without detention for fabricating their educational backgrounds or working without proper visas." It was also mentioned that one of the arrested had "reportedly enjoyed improper relations with his female students."

On September 7 Yonhap reported on teachers arrested for pot in Cheongju.

A lengthy investigation into a degree forging ring led to the arrests or deportations of many Canadians, which were reported in the Globe and Mail on October 10 (full text here), where it was stated that 35 had been deported up to that point. More on this investigation was reported by the Chosun Ilbo on October 19, where it was said that 70 people had been arrested or deported. Part of the reason for the arrests was to act as a "deterrent to curb the influx of unqualified instructors" before many foreign teachers began teaching in public schools the next March, or so immigration said. On November 27, the Chosun Ilbo reported that a GNP lawmaker had proposed a plan to "assign native-speaking English teachers to elementary, middle and high schools across the country by 2010". The year ended with the Herald Gyeongje reporting on December 28 that an English teacher in Yongsan had been arrested for possession of cocaine. Police reported that "more than 90 percent of American drug offenders are English teachers who entered Korea on work visas".

2006 began quietly, with an article about foreign teachers appearing only in a Donga Ilbo story on March 21, when it was announced that, in three different cases, 13 illegal teachers had been busted (making, in one case, 10 million won a month, it was reported). It also relates that "Employers who hire illegal foreign instructors are fined 4 million won, while brokers are fined 5 million won. Illegal foreign instructors are fined 2 million won or deported if they are caught."

English Spectrum made the news again on April 22 when the Kukmin Ilbo reported that a porn site named Kimchi Girl, which was linked to in the English Spectrum forums, had received a warning from the Korean Internet Safety Commission. On May 26, the Kukmin Ilbo would once again report on English Spectrum, translating parts of some of the more inflamatory posts there. In May the video "Soju Mama" was posted on youtube; apparently netizens haven't noticed it yet.

The bigger scandal of late May and early June had nothing to do with native-speaking English teachers, but that didn't stop some groups from trying to spin it that way. On May 24 the Segye Ilbo and Ohmynews reported that a native-speaking teacher of Korean descent at the Seongnam English Town had been accused of molesting female grade 6 students. Statements by the school later claimed that other teachers present saw no sexual harrassment, and made it clear that the teacher, while Korean American, had been hired as a Korean-speaking teacher (not that some news organizations noticed). On May 27 YTN reported that a Korean teacher had tried to sexually assault middle school girls at an English Camp in Ansan.

On May 30 the Gyeonggi-do branch of the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union released a statement (translated by the Marmot, of course) saying that

"because the English camp sexual assaults are a structural problem brought on by unchecked native speakers, such incidents could potentially occur at any time".

As basis for their claims, the union cited a) the fact that any native speaker with a degree could become an instructor, regardless of their teaching qualifications; b) native speakers’ relatively free attitudes about sex (and their expression of said attitudes); c) native speakers’ lack of a sense of responsibility, since few feel they are answering a calling, but rather have as their goal to stay for a short time to experience Korean culture and build up their resumes.

The obvious response of the English camps were that the people who allegedly committed the assaults weren't native teachers at all. In response to this, the union's sole foreign member resigned in protest on June 6.

On July 24 Breaknews posted an article titled "Low-quality foreign teachers absorbed in women, drugs" (here, in Korean), which wondered, once again, whether Korea was a paradise for illegal foreign teachers. On August 7 the Marmot linked to a blog by an English teacher which spoke of his conquests and mixed nude photos with photos of co-workers. A reader then left a comment saying that he had sent the link to several newspapers, including Breaknews. On August 21, Breaknews published an article about this teacher titled "Affairs with High School Students, Spreading Nude Photos on the Internet", and used it as an opportunity to discuss other teachers who dated high school students and did horrible things like "joke around during their conversation classes". The article also mentions that "we’ve gotten a string of tips about native speaking English teachers from former and current English teachers and students. This is evidence that the problem isn’t limited to just a small minority of foreign teachers." The article features the blogger, a restaurant owner who mentions the teacher dating a high school girl, 4 hagwon owners or recruiters and 4 netizens who relate stories (mostly in general) about English teachers.

On August 13, Breaknews reported that the Korea Foreign Teacher Recruiting Association had released a blacklist of 19 foreign teachers.


On August 16 the Korea Times reported on the story. By August 19, the Korean media had found out that Jonbenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr had taught in Korea; the reaction of the Korean press to this was covered by the Marmot here. [As it later turned out, Karr had nothing to do with this murder].

The September 18, 2006 Breaknews article this quote is originally from can be found here (in Korean) titled (in the internet edition) "At foreigner AIDS testing centers, 80% of users are native speaking instructors." Note the lovely photos used in the article.


In the article Breaknews mentions that it had already published several articles about “The damage beyond imagination caused by illegal low quality English teachers” and ‘Low quality foreign English instructors’ shocking debauchery.'

The end of the 'AIDS article' has a Q&A with a man who had contributed to the several articles Breaknews had written about 'low, illegal English teachers,' a Mr. K. The interview is titled "Protection of human rights first, behind the protection of citizens; Enhance the E-2 visa, to reduce risk of HIV infection." The unidentified contributor suggests that “E-2 visa requirements should be strengthened. … A medical check certificate (including AIDS) should be added to the documents required for an E-2 visa.”

As to who the contributor might be, or who he represents, it might be worth looking at what appeared on Anti-English Spectrum the day the article was released. This makes pretty clear that they are connected with the AIDS article, and they're very happy that they're no longer just on the internet, but on broadcasts, in newspapers, on subways and in convenience stores.

Breaknews (AIDS Foreign teacher) wide distribution!!!

Broadcast and newspaper. Today it's come! Till now we
hadn't risen from the internet! The report's in terminals,
convenience stores, subways!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On October 23, 12 teachers were busted by the police for drug use and document forgery. Eight of the arrested were Korean nationals deported from the US for gang activity or Korean Americans, while the other four were Americans or Canadians. It's not made clear who was using the drugs and who was forging documents. Certain groups used this as a chance to complain about lax background checks for foreign teachers:

Some 5 percent of the foreign English teachers have a criminal record in their home country or committed crimes here, the founder of Korea Foreign Teacher Recruiting Association Choi Hyuk says. “Their crimes are mostly document forgery, but there are some convicted of burglary or sex crimes.”

On October 24 the Seoul Shinmun complained about the lack of punishment for both illegal teachers and the hagwons that employ them. On October 31, the Korea Times reported in a similar vein on how "English Institutes Evade Immigration Law"

When hagwons get caught employing unqualified teachers, they receive a warning or five black marks from the government office, regardless of the number of unqualified teachers they employ. When they collect 30 black marks, hagwons are forcefully closed for seven days.

From January 2003 until July of this year, 231 foreign English teachers got caught for teaching in Korea with tourist visas. Among these people, 27 of those were expelled, accounting for 11.7 percent of the total number. Most of others were ordered to leave the country without any further follow-up by the government.

It was revealed also at this time that other foreigners were caught bringing in large amounts of methamphetamine into the country, but since it was coming from Rajin, in North Korea, no one really cared.

On November 21 the Weekly Chosun ran a lengthy article looking at the foreign English teacher community that listed some figures:

According to immigration authorities, there were 14,355 native-speaking English instructors living in Korea as of August. Within the English-teaching industry, they say the number exceeds 30,000 is you include teachers without E-2 visas who are illegally teaching.

As I wrote at the beginning, this number is far less than the number of E-2 visas the Korean immigration service said they issued in 2006. At any rate, it lists numbers by nationality, and also describes how visas are issued and even touches on racism in hagwons and the difficulty darker-skinned native speakers have getting jobs.

Around this time the website of Jeongijo English hagwon in Mok-dong was discovered, which listed 10 reasons why they didn't hire native speakers (translated at Occidentalism on Dec 14). Note also a similarity with what the Korea Teacher's Union wrote in June. The bold items have since been removed; the italic items have been added.

The reasons Native Speakers are not hired:

1. Most are only short-term visitors and, therefore, lack a sense of responsibility and duty.
2. They have no concept of teaching and, therefore, have absolutely no sense of duty or professionalism.
3. They are untrained in education.
4. They are absolutely not high-quality personnel (most graduate from no-name technical schools and 2-year colleges.
5. It is impossible to check what kinds of people they are or what their characters are (ex. drug user, homosexual, convict, AIDS patient, sex offender).
6. They only just barely teach their classes and do not invest any time in managing students.
7. They have no burning passion for the students.
8. They do not agonize at all over improving the student’s skills.
9. Legitimate native speakers are rare. (The majority are foreign students, gyopo)
   
10. It is impossible for parents to easily consult with them anytime they want.

* I want to specify that the above applies to only some foreigners.
[Another sentence has been added saying that they've consulted a lawyer regarding this list and that some of what they had written was removed]. The Metropolitician's response to this is well worth a read.

On December 1st and 2nd, a sketch comedy performance called Babo-Palooza was put on by a group of foreigners and Koreans called Roundface Theatre in Busan. Descriptions of the show can be found here and here. On December 12 it became known to organizers that the police were investigating Babo-Palooza and the next day two of the producers underwent two and a half hours of questioning at police headquarters, of which one wrote that, "What became painfully clear to me during all of this was that the cops were coming after us because of the content of the show." Later he wrote that, "I think that the Korean media is just about to get ahold of this, and that's when things will really get fucked up, because they will invariably twist it out of our favor."

The next day, December 14, the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported (with great inaccuracy) that nine foreigners had been booked for violating visa rules due to a comedy perforance called "Oriental Story" (which the Kyunghyang seems to have made up). Translations of the Korean coverage and links to several other sources were in a post at the Marmot. Worth remembering is that two of the actors in "The Host" had been deported in early October for acting, a violation of their teacher/tourist visas. A favorable article in the Korea Herald on December 16 noted that the investigation followed "an undercover operation in which police officers, who had been observing members of the comedy troupe for some time, attended Babo-palooza!" (in fact an undercover cop had filmed a performance). A Korea Times article on December 26 focused on comments by immigration authorities about the limitations on outside activities a teaching visa places on its holder. "Foreigners may face deportation or fines if they volunteer at orphanages or organize performances without reporting them to the authorities." On the same day the story was reported in the Seattle newspaper The Stranger. A decision (perhaps not a final one) wasn't made by prosecutors until April 19, when two producers had to write "statements of regret" were let off with a warning. In the meantime, at least one teacher involved in the performance was effectively deported when immigration denied him a visa.

Another English teacher was punished for questioning Korean historical claims about Dokdo on his blog when his university declined to rehire him after receiving complaints from netizens who had read his blog. On December 23, Gerry Bevers received an email from his department head which stated at one point, "I think there is little doubt that the school made this decision because of the Dokdo problem." An article about this case appeared in the Korea Times on January 7, 2007.

The next headline with an English teacher in it appeared on January 29, when the Munhwa Ilbo reported that "Yet Another Foreign English Teacher [was Busted for] Marijuana." On that day YTN reported that foreigners and US soldiers running amok in Hongdae were turning it into a "lawless zone". After USFK declared Hongdae off limits to US soldiers, YTN reported on February 5 that, according to many people they interviewed, such as Lt. Park Du-hyeon [Mapo Police Station, Hongik Patrol], “Since the ban, the area in front of Hongik University has maintained a state of very serene public order." William Randolf Hearst would be proud.

On March 20 the Joongang Ilbo reported that a 24-year-old Canadian English teacher in Bundang had been detained on charges of smoking hash, and that five other English teachers were under investigation. On April 16 Yonhap reported that a "Canadian teacher has been under investigation by the immigration office here for allegedly getting a job with forged documents". On April 17, a post at Daum appeared titled "Dismiss Hongik University English Teacher J. Scott Burgeson!" after his book "Daehanminguk Sayonghugi" ("Korea Consumer Report") was published. When Yonhap posted an article about the book on April 14, it generated 969 comments in two days. The Anti-English Spectrum cafe also targeted him and his university received several calls complaining about him, to no avail. It seems "low quality" English teachers aren't the only foreigners on their hitlist.

On May 9, as the Hankyoreh reported, 17 Chinese, 10 Canadians, 7 Americans, 4 New Zealanders and 8 foreigners from non-english speaking countries were arrested by the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency for teaching on a tourist visa. The Chinese were teaching in Chinese language institutes, but the rest - including a Bulgarian, Panamanian, and Columbian - were teaching English. 56 Korean hagwon owners or brokers were also arrested.


On May 23 a poster on Dave's ESL Cafe brought to attention the fact that the Daejeon Foreign Language Association, in an attempt to reduce the competition, had placed some 200 banners on hagwons and their buses which addressed Foreign English teachers by declaring "You are [being] watched," and that "Private tutoring of E.nglish is a[n il]legal offense," offering a $500 reward for tips leading to conviction and deportation of offenders. A lengthy article about this by Chris Gelken appeared in the Korea Herald on June 7

On May 28 the Chosun Ilbo reported that an Australian English teacher had been blacklisted by the Korea Foreign Teacher Recruiting Association for threatening his ex-girlfriend with AIDS. Said organization "estimates that about 10 percent of the 20,000-30,000 foreign instructors working here are fired after they were found to have committed sexual improprieties or refused to teach classes." I love the word 'or'. The English language Chosun article was titled "Australian English Teacher Blacklisted for AIDS Threat " The Marmot pointed out that the title in Korean was “White English Teacher Threatens Korean Woman with AIDS," which first appeared in the Sports Chosun with the subheader, “Beware the ‘Ugly White Teacher.’” Korea Beat has translated the Sports Chosun article here, and it's well worth a read. As it tells us, despite teachers writing 'abnormal' things (like saying they like to have sex in their free time), there are Korean heroes, much like the KKK riding in to save the day at the end of "Birth of a Nation", who are ready to do something about this:

Citizens angerd by the nakedly sexual talk and actions of those kinds of white foreign teachers are voluntarily trying to improve things. The 14,419-member strong Anti-English Spectrum is actively organizing a “citizen’s movement to toss out illegal English teachers”, requesting police and prosecution action...

Yes, we need less "nakedly sexual talk" and more teachers getting three month suspensions for molesting 12 year olds and high school students visiting Chinese prostitutes on school trips. When in Rome...

It should be noted that English teachers weren't the only foreigners on the receiving end of such terrible-beyond-belief "journalism". If February had YTN targeting (mostly) GIs in Hongdae, and the Weekly Chosun was targeting English teachers in May, June 11 saw the Weekly Hankook Magazine offer this headline about migrant workers in Korea (especially Ansan):

Residential Neighborhoods with Many Foreigners, Lawless Zones when the Sun Goes Down: Scary Night Streets, Foreigner Crimes Rising Daily… High Crime Zones Devoid of Public Authority Appearing

Great stuff. Anyways, on June 7 the Chosun Ilbo reported that the prosecutor's office released stats on foreigners busted for drugs in 2006. [Mind you, these stats are different than the ones listed here].

Of the 116 foreigners caught with drugs last year, 46 or 39.7 percent were Americans, making up the largest group. There were also 11 Chinese and 11 Canadians.[...] Prosecutors believe the rising number of American drug offenders correlates to a rising number of English teachers coming to Korea.

The total of 116 foreign drug offenders caught in Korea last year is a 28.4 percent decline from the year before. There were 88 foreign drug offenders caught in 2002, 86 in 2003, 203 in 2004, and 162 in 2005.

Did you notice that the number of foreign drug offenders peaked in 2004? Perhaps that's not a helpful way to look at these things. I'd rather see arrest stats for Americans over the past few years than just a comparison to the previous year before making a statement about the rise in American drug offenders, but that's just me.

On June 9, a TV show called Pandora's Box reported on drunk english teachers in Hongdae, and can be seen here thanks to Mongdori.



Mongdori also is the place to go if you want to read anti-English teacher comics from the anti-English Spectrum website (here, here, and here)

On July 3 the Chosun Ilbo reported that police in Seoul had arrested two Canadians for working as teachers with a fake degree and booked seven other foreigners and Koreans either on the same charge or for employing them. They also arrested the Australian English instructor who had 'threatened his girlfriend with AIDS'.

On July 15, the Chosun Ilbo reported that the Seoul Central District Court sentenced a 30-year old Canadian to six months in prison on for using a fake diploma to get a teaching job at an English language institute. It's unclear if this was the same teacher who was reported as being under investigation on April 16.

The judge said, "Considering the situation in Korea where significant part of foreign language education involves private education, the quality of the instructor is as important as that of regular school teachers. Without any proper qualifications, using a forged degree for employment is seen as an act disruptive to Korea's private education system. Strong punishment is called for."

Oddly enough, this sentence came at the same time that Shin Jeong-ah, a former Dongguk University professor who fell from grace when her fake diploma came to light, was fleeing the country for the US. On her return in mid-September, a court rejected an arrest warrant (to hold her during the investigation) saying that she wasn't at risk of fleeing because "she may not receive a jail term as the nation does not have clear legal standards about penalties related to such charges." Well, if a hagwon teacher gets 6 months, a fake university professor should get quite a bit more. Right?

On September 4 the Sisa Journal reported on the treatment of foreign professors in Korean universities and examined the unequal treatment they receive. On September 5 it was announced by police in Seoul that 23 (or is it 25?) people were being investigated on marijuana charges. The Joongang Ilbo wrote that

The police detained three on trafficking charges: two Canadians, 28 and 30, and a Ghanaian, 34. They could be sentenced to 5 or more years in prison if convicted. In addition, the police booked three Britons, five Canadians, 13 Americans and one Korean. The maximum penalty is a fine and 5 years in prison. All 23, except for the Korean and the Ghanaian, are English instructors at hagwon, elementary schools or universities. The Korean is a girlfriend of one of the teachers.

It was once again stated that “Some of the teachers were intoxicated while teaching students.” The Korean-language media reported the incident in a different light, of course.

Foreign English teachers have been arrested for smoking marijuana before lessons and habitually using drugs in seedy areas. [Cheongnyangni? Miari? Nope, Hongdae and Itaewon] The number of foreign English teachers who regularly use drugs is increasing.[...]
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.’ [...T]he 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’.

This case was also reported in the Chosun Ilbo and video of police searching an apartment is here. Over at the Korea Law Blog, Brendan Carr suggests that putting a different name on package of drugs mailed to you is not going to fool the police. In the Korea Times, American Attorney and law professor Sean Hayes described how drug investigations proceed:

In most criminal investigations involving drugs, a police officer will obtain information that a certain person is using or selling drugs from other suspects or from undercover agents/informants. After the police arrest you they test you for drugs, search your home and if they believe that you are involved in “hard” drugs or have distributed drugs, they will hold you and request a detention order pending trial.

It should be mentioned, however, that they don't always use lists of names from informants. Earlier this year a bar in Itaewon whose owner had several convictions for marijuana possession was raided by the police. Everyone in the bar was given a urine test.

With perfect timing, the KBS show In-Depth 60 Minutes broadcast a report on English teachers on September 5, the same day the drug arrests were announced. It focused especially on how to get a fake degree, but also looked at marijuana use by a teacher ratted out by an ex-girlfriend. Here is the show, courtesy of Mongdori.





Zen Kimchi wrote of the show:

I knew the show was coming because I have an acquaintance with one of the “bad” foreigners in the program, and KBS went through a lot of nasty tricks, including threats, to get that interview. I won’t go into any more details of that incident other than the resulting interview they got was tame compared to the elaborate sleazy tactics they used to get it.

On September 11 the Korea Times reported in an article titled "32% of Native English Teachers Found Unqualified" that Rep. Lee Kyung-sook of the UNDP announced that 32.7% of 997 foreigners who taught English at English immersion programs did not have CELTA certificates, "which is essential to teach the language here, Lee said". Funny, immigration doesn't think so.


That brings us up to date. It should be pretty obvious that coverage of English teachers in the media has changed markedly since the English Spectrum incident in 2005 (when sex was brought into the equation), and not for the better. I think a really interesting thing would be to look at the media treatment of other large groups of foreigners, like migrant workers and American soldiers and look at trends in the depictions of all of these groups. The article about migrant workers and rising crime rates from this past summer is much more in the style of the articles portraying English teachers as depraved hooligans, for example. I'm curious what longer term expats think about changing media depictions of foreigners over the long term...