E-2 visa regulations to be strengthened further?

Update:
This is being discussed at Dave's ESL Cafe.

Original Post:

I won't have time to translate this for a few days, I imagine, but NoCut News is reporting as of July 15, the Justice Ministry will strengthen E-2 visa regulations (again), and that perhaps marijuana tests and strengthened criminal record checks are on the way (AES should be thrilled, having petitioned the Justice ministry for years to do pot tests). The article mentions the recent Daegu molestation case, recent drug busts, and the fact that a Korean American wanted for murder taught here. Problem is, how do changes to E-2 visa issuance apply to Korean citizens?

After Interpol located R in Korea, U.S. investigators asked the Korean government to extradite him. However, because R has dual citizenship, he had been able to change his name in a Korean court and couldn’t be traced.

This isn't much different than changing E-2 visa rules in response to the Christopher Paul Neil case, even though he wasn't on an E-2 visa. The article also mentions the stats that Lee Gun-hyeon released last September, but says they were released by the Education Ministry. Odd. This Korea Times article about Choi Young-hee pushing to pass her foreign English teacher bills says the stats came from the National Police Agency:

Referring to data from the National Policy Agency, Choi said the number of foreign English teachers, caught for theft, drug, violence and rape, reached 274 over the past three years.

They were arrested for other crimes as well, but its best just to mention the most sensational ones. Not sure if it's Choi or Kang Shin-who who's responsible for that. And why not compare the crime rates of Koreans and foreign English teachers these stats provide? Perhaps because pointing out the foreign English teacher crime rate is 5 times less than the Korean crime rate might not help make a case against them? Choi has been calling for her bills to be passed for some time. The things she's calling for in Kang's article, however, don't seem all that related to her bills (criminal record checks issued within one month of applying for a job, for example).

As for the upcoming changes, we'll just have to wait and see. It seems the No Cut News article is the only article about it so far.

Sex crimes against children put under a microscope by the media

CCTV shot of the suspect. (From here).

Police have made public an image taken from CCTV of a man suspected of raping a 7 year-old girl on June 26 in Dongdaemun. As the Joongang Ilbo describes it,

The suspect, who is assumed to be in his 30’s, allegedly found the girl playing in the street by herself in her neighborhood in Jangan, Seoul, at around 12:30 p.m. and approached her on his motorcycle saying, “Let’s go play at your house.” After raping the girl, the man took off on his motorcycle with roughly $200 worth of gold rings and 10,000 won in cash he found in the apartment. The girl was later found crying outside the apartment by a neighbor, who called her mother. The girl’s father was the first to arrive on the scene and called the police at 1:04 p.m.

Police at the Dongdaemun precinct said the girl was brought to a hospital an hour after they received the father’s call, but she did not require surgery. The victim was born in Vietnam. Her parents came to the country five years ago and have been residing and working in Korea since.

On June 30,

Dongdaemun police doubled the reward for useful information to 10 million won ($8,150) and printed out an additional 50,000 posters with the suspect’s composite sketch, based on a description by the young victim, to distribute nationwide after 16,000 were distributed in the Seoul area.

The fact that the national police agency was not made aware of the case, and that the national police commissioner learned of it through media reports has been examined as an example of disorganization among the NPA.

This is just one of many rape or molestation cases involving children which has been in the media lately. In early June, an 8 year old girl was snatched from a school near Yeongdeungpo Station and raped, resulting in an outcry which led to the passing of a bill allowing chemical castration last week.

On June 25, a Busan court handed down a death sentence to Kim Kil-tae, who raped and murdered Lee Yu-ri in February. Much more needs to be said about the Yeongdeungpo and Busan cases, but that will have to wait.

Last week,

A 60-year-old man accused of molesting two sisters, aged 9 and 10, for nearly a year has been acquitted by the Seoul Western District Court, which ruled that he was mentally unsound.[...] According to the girls, Noh fondled their chests and legs in a narrow alley on their way home from school, at least twice a month - over 30 times in total - starting in July 2009. Noh initially told the police after his arrest, “I could not help myself.”

On July 1, another rape occurred in Daegu:

Police in Daegu, about 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, said Friday that a massive manhunt was underway for a man suspected of raping a 13-year-old girl at her home in broad daylight.

The suspect, believed to be in his late teens or early 20s, broke into the girl's house, where she was staying alone after school, Thursday afternoon and raped her, according to officials at Dalseo Police Station.

On Wednesday it became known that an American English teacher at a school in Daegu had been accused of molesting several male students, but fled the country before he could be arrested.

Another case that came to light at the same time took place in Gwangju, where a 50 year old elementary school teacher was suspended from work after 5 students came forward saying they had been molested by the teacher, with police seeking an arrest warrant for the man.

While it may seem like Korea has been beset by an incredible number of sex crimes against children over the past month, this editorial is revealing:

With this latest in the recent series of sexual assaults of young girls, we have pushed another innocent girl into an insurmountable ordeal by ignoring the ardent appeals of those who have been victimized before her.

According to statistics, 1,017 children under the age of 12 and 1,447 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15 experienced sexual violence in the last year alone. [Emphasis added]

I found that comment about the "recent series" of sexual assaults interesting, especially considering the statistics in the next paragraph. Put simply, if 1,017 children and 1,447 teens (between 13 and 15) are victims of sex crimes every year, that adds up to 3 children and 4 teens between 13 and 15 being victimized every day (on average). There is not a "recent series" of such sexual crimes - this is always happening. It's just that the media has decided - as it does whenever a particular case angers people - to highlight these cases, which would usually either not be covered or covered by perhaps only one or two media outlets, and which are now linked together in articles in order to point to a great problem that exists. To be sure, there have been several laws passed since the murder of Lee Yu-ri in March (and the Yeongdeungpo case in June), and it's great that the issue has finally gotten enough attention to get things moving (see here for a brief history of the slow pace of change since 2006). I'm not entirely sure that the solutions being offered are always the best ideas, however, and public fury (and worry) whipped up by this media coverage may be putting pressure on politicians to act first and think later. I'll save a more in-depth look at this for a later post.

English teacher in Jeju fined for importing pot seeds

K, the American elementary school teacher in Jeju-do who was arrested for smuggling 44 marijuana seeds into the country (via international mail, ordered from a UK website) has been fined 5 million won.

According to Jeju-ui Sori and the Jeju Ilbo, K's lawyer argued that K had not been aware that possession of marijuana seeds was a crime in Korea, but considering that K had ordered the package using a different name and then hid the seeds in a flag affixed to his ceiling, which made it difficult for police to find them, the judge decided that K had indeed been aware of the illegality of his actions. In sentencing, the judge took into consideration the fact that K had no previous criminal record, and had reflected on his actions.

The fraction faction

Here's another article by James Wade. I'm sure the political scene has changed a great deal since 1963, of course.

Foreign English teacher flees molestation charges

Update:

Korea Beat has translated an article about the case.

Original Post:

Via the Marmot's Hole, a 55 year old American teaching English at an Elementary school in Daegu was to be charged for molesting four male grade 6 students but, as Yonhap reports, he fled the country via Gimhae airport for Japan at 10:27, two and half hours before the Ministry of Justice requested a travel ban (or before said ban was to take effect). As noted at the Marmot's Hole (and reported by YTN),

Two boys in 6th grade say that the teacher locked the door during school time and took their clothes off and touched them. There have been previous incidents when other children came forward and told their home room teacher that he had put them on his lap and put his hands down their shorts, but the English teacher denied it.

The late response of both the school and the police is being criticized, especially because the school didn’t take the charges of sexual abuses seriously and tried to cover it up. That they tried to cover it up shouldn't be that shocking, especially considering what happened in Daegu two years ago.

This is the fifth case of a foreign English teacher molesting students in Korea that I've been able to find in the media. The other four cases (which actually involved police investigations (one of which was dropped)), taken from here, are as follows:

On October 12, 2007 the Maeil Gyeongje, Kookmin Ilbo, YTN, NoCut News Newsis, and Kyunghyang Shinmun and two other internet news outlets reported that a 24 year-old American English teacher had been booked but not detained for molesting a six year old student at the Seoul hagwon where he worked on September 19. He strongly denied it, but CCTV video was entered as evidence.

This January 17, 2008 NoCut News, Segye Ilbo and Yonhap and two other online news outlets reported that a 39 year-old teacher from New Zealand teaching at a hagwon in Haeundae in Busan had been arrested for regularly putting his hands down the pants of a seven year-old girl during class time. As per the Marmot, "According to police, the Kiwi, identified as “T,” moved the alleged victim’s chair to a corner of the classroom so he could molest her without the other children in the class knowing."

An April 25, 2008 Kyunghyang Shinmun article reported that on March 18 a 32 year-old Canadian teacher at 'S' hagwon in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon molested a 9 year old student in the classroom. He confessed after seeing CCTV footage and, saying he did it accidentally after drinking too much makkeolli, and appealed for mercy. As he was working on a tourist visa, his hagwon was fined 4 million won for hiring him.

The most reported case of molestation was when a Canadian teacher was investigated, and then arrested for molesting students at a district office-run foreign language program. On January 14 and 15, 2009, YTN, Maeil Gyeongje, Financial News,the Kookmin Ilbo and six other online news outlets reported on a 41 year-old Canadian teacher being investigated on allegations of molesting three 8 year old girls at a citizens' center in Seong-dong in Seoul the previous October. On February 12, Yonhap, YTN and NoCut News reported that a warrant had been issued for his arrest. This comment may be worth reading.

As it turns out, this is one rare case where the outcome is known. This KBS news report from early July titled "'Out of Control Foreigner English Teacher' Teaches Class while High and Commits Sexual Molestation" reveals that:

in Seoul a native speaking teacher working for a district office-run foreign language program was indicted for molesting a grade one elementary school student under his care in December but last week was cleared for lack of evidence.

The YTN article about this most recent case ended by connecting it to other recent rape cases which occurred at school (or where the victim was snatched from a school).

"One on One" vs "Better than Native"

These photos were taken about a month ago (they slipped my mind) near exit 12 of Jonggak Station, and they reveal that Pagoda seems to have a pretty clear ideas about its target audience.


The first ad, for 'one to one English conversation, direct English,' seems to have women in mind, and I can't help but think of it as an illustration for this article:


The attraction there is clearly for women to get close to, to have one on one communication with, and to have almost direct contact with the male foreign teacher. The program aimed at men, on the other hand, takes a slightly different approach:


The idea is to take the intensive program and, moving beyond healthy competition, to be better than the (male) native speaker, to beat him, to be stronger than him.

All in all, they're a rather succinct summary of popular attitudes towards foreign (native-speaking) teachers.

If you haven't seen it, this post at the Marmot's Hole about Korean pop culture invading Nagaland (a state in India) is fascinating.

Hey Hyundai, how are Koreans supposed to cheer with foreigners if you don't invite them?

A weeks ago I wrote about the Shouting Korea campaign, but didn't get around to posting these photos:



The bottom one might make a great new header...

Speaking of the campaign, when you watch the TV ads, they make much clearer who's behind the campaign.



Look carefully, and you might just see the Hyundai logo. The first Shouting Korea ad, a teaser video, can be found here:



One hopes that Motley Crue was compensated by Hyundai, considering how similar the 'drum-drum SHOUT!' part sounds like Shout at the Devil. I have to admit though, I'd rather listen to 80s hair metal than Kim Yuna and Big Bang:



It just gets worse, though. Last time I showed this poster, which describe how to do the 'shouting dance:'


It's even worse when the pictures move and are accompanied by the 'music' above:



Hmmm... manufactured cutesy banal pop music organized by a conglomerate in the name of nationalism. I think if Bill Hicks had lived to see this he would have declared himself to be in hell.

Back to the shouting campaign and the place of foreigners in it:

After watching the Netherlands defeat Brazil Friday night, I noticed something about the Shouting Korea ad on TV, which I found here.

The proud taeguk warriors fighting spirit has been stopped, but...

...we should not stop shouting.

Soccer is a festival.
(Enjoy the world cup at Hyundai Fan Park
with the people of the world)

Let's go to Hyundai Fan Park!

Hmmm, with that mention of taeguk 'warriors' and 'fighting spirit,' perhaps that quote about 75% of Koreans believing that “the survival of the fittest is a major principle of contemporary world” was way off. Hold on a minute though - who did I see the Koreans cheering with?


I know I've seen the girl in the bottom right corner before...


There she is at bottom left. Odd though, I thought the idea was to drown these people out, not cheer with them. What I didn't realize, which a friend pointed out, was that these 'let's cheer with the people of the world (whom we formerly cast as our, y'know, enemies)' ads only appeared after Korea was knocked out of the world cup. Cute. Now that you're no longer a threat, let's cheer together (unless you were cheering for us, and then we already liked you:)

At any rate, now that the taeguk warriors have been sent home (happily with no officiating scandals or bomb threats to embassies) Korean fans can shout along with the people of the world at Hyundai Fan Park. For more information about about Hyundai Fan Parks, let's look at their site:

Hyundai will be offering soccer fans around the world the opportunity to enjoy the World Cup in a fun and safe environment by providing venues and large screens in 32 cities from 19 countries across the 31 days of the event. Giant screens will relay all the action from South Africa, while group cheering boosts the festive mood.

Well, actually, that's from their British site. If you follow the link from there (or dig around FIFA's site), you'll find this page, which lists all of Hyundai's fan parks, including Seoul's, in Olympic Park. Now, clearly, if this is genuine, this call to cheer with the world's people, and not just a slogan to keep people coming out to Hyundai's turf for "distributing plastic balloons, pompoms and other items... as well as their leaflets and advertising goods" (the source of much of the garbage left over after matches), then I imagine Hyundai has done a lot to advertise the location of this fan park to foreigners in Seoul. Right?

[Sound of crickets]

I found no newspaper articles (well, one brief mention of the park's existence) and only one semi-official looking tourism blog in English which mentioned the fan park - and that was so foreigners could cheer at a Korean game.


Golly, it's wonderful that Hyundai creates spaces for foreigners to cheer at games in 18 other countries, but it seems pretty clear that in Korea there is only one team to cheer for, and that Hyundai's shouting campaign was a hell of a lot more honest when the role of foreigners was to be drowned out by the patriotic danil minjok or to join Koreans in celebrating their nation[al team].


Mind you, I may have misunderstood all of this. Perhaps the idea was, after the Korean team's ouster, for Koreans to cheer for foreign teams with the people of the world in a purely symbolic sense, in that those teams' fans would also be at other Hyundai Fan Parks worldwide watching the games at the same time. In that case, I can see why there would be no need to involve foreigners actually living in Korea in any of it.

The root of world cup fan fests

[Update: I've added new material under the 2002 World Cup photo below.]


Looking around the FIFA website, I found the above photo of and an article about the fan fests around the world where people can gather at outdoor venues to watch the world cup games in front of giant screens:

More than 400,000 fans celebrated together at the 16 official FIFA Fan Fest™ venues yesterday, as the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ got underway.

The Opening Match between South Africa and Mexico was followed by 300,000 enthusiasts at the official FIFA Fan Fests in the host nation, while, between them, Rome, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro had 100,000 supporters.

Another article adds that:

Official public viewings events were first launched by FIFA in 2006 as part of the official programme under the name of “Fan Fests”. During June/July 2006, more than 18 million fans gathered at the 12 official events and transformed Germany into one of the greatest fan parties of all time.

Photos of gatherings in front of outdoor screens in Berlin and Frankfurt attest to this, and it was these gatherings that helped Germans feel that it was okay to be patriotic and be proud of their flag again. Similarly, a friend of mine told me that the outdoor cheering in Sydney saw different minorities - who would often be cheering their own teams - come together to cheer for the Australian team in its first world cup appearance in 32 years. The FIFA site adds that

Enabling fans to experience the ‘FIFA World Cup feeling’ in their own country was certainly FIFA’s aim when it unveiled Fan Fests in Rome, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Mexico City and Rio - and the results have been spectacular. Within the first two weeks alone, more than three million fans had packed out the 16 domestic and international venues, with those outside South Africa accounting for 50 per cent of this mammoth turnout.

Germany, whose wholehearted embrace of the Fan Fest concept in 2006 provided the spur for this expansion, have again led the way, with a record 305,000 coming together in Berlin’s Olympic Square for their group decider against Ghana. Even elsewhere, where the fluctuating fortunes of Australia, France, Italy and Bafana Bafana might have been expected to deflate the atmosphere, festivities have continued unabated.

I find it interesting that this history of the fan fests goes back only to 2006, to the first official fan fests, and that no mention is made of their obvious inspiration:


I can't find it now, but in 2006 I read an interview where the mayor of one of the German cities hosting the world cup described the outdoor screens and said that "of course" the idea came from South Korea. Now it seems Hyundai is taking the initiative in colonizing not only street cheering in Korea, but around the world:

Hyundai Motor Company, one of the official top partners of the FIFA 2010 World Cup, has officially kicked off the Hyundai Fan Park, a street cheering event, with the opening match between South Africa and Mexico today in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Hyundai will be offering soccer fans around the world the opportunity to enjoy the World Cup in a fun and safe environment by providing venues and large screens in 32 cities from 19 countries across the 31 days of the event. Giant screens will relay all the action from South Africa, while group cheering boosts the festive mood.

Actually, further reading at FIFA's Hyundai site makes it clear I spoke to soon - it turns out the 'Fan Fests' FIFA describes on its website as taking place in South Africa are actually Hyundai Fan Parks - so that's what is seen at the top of this post.

At any rate, while such street cheering led to patriotic feeling in Korea, Australia, and Germany, that use of public space also influenced the organization of and specific spaces occupied by anti-American candlelight protests six months later. Of course, such dark sides of 'patriotic' mobilization may only be found in Korea, due to the history of occupying urban space during protests here, something which of course informed how the street cheering was allowed to occur in Korea in the first place (as compared to Japan, where despite the plethora of large outdoor screens in urban areas, street cheering did not take place).

Moss

One wonders if this film described by the Korea Herald will turn out to be interesting:

When the film adaptation of the popular internet comic “Moss” was announced last year, anticipation for the production was high from legions of loyal fans.

However, that initial excitement soon turned into disappointment when word got out that Kang Woo-suk -- director of such straight forward, mainstream fare as the Public Enemy franchise -- and his Cinema Service production company was taking on the project.[...]

Since “Moss” was noted for the layered storytelling and the cosmopolitan approach with which its author handled the subtext of social commentary, many had doubted the Kang would be able to do it justice.[...]

Anchored in a classic murder mystery, “Moss” tells the story of one man’s journey into the heart of darkness in a small town deep in the backwoods of the Korean countryside to uncover the truth behind his father’s death. It’s a story full of twists and turns seemingly inspired by American southern gothic literature.

When the original series first began its run two years ago online, the 80-part graphic novel became an Internet sensation -- captivating readers with its labyrinthine “whodunnit” plot which was accentuated by the richly detailed illustrations of the decaying village that gave it an ambiance of dread that millions of avid readers praised. [...]

Jung Jae-young, whose casting as the ominous village patriarch garnered just as much criticism from fans said, “My character from the original and the one in the film carry two completely different images.”

Here's how Jung Jae-young's character looks in the comic:


Here's how he looks in the movie:


The posters are from this article, which has a few more photos. Judging from the trailer at the film's website, it seems like there's lots of action. One wonders if Kang will be able to make an interesting film, especially since he wants to "overcome" the original. I Still chuckle at the memory of a film producer who was a former student telling me how she tried to dodge the question when Kang asked her for her opinion of Hanbando. The original comic Moss can be read here, and the film opens on July 15.

Namdaemun grows by 1.4 meters

The Joongang Ilbo tells us that

in their effort to rebuild Sungnyemun, which was originally erected in 1396, experts have discovered the original foundation stones, which date back to the early period of the Joseon Dynasty. [...]

From a comparison of Sungnyemun blueprints from the 15th and 17th centuries, experts discovered that the ground around the gate had risen roughly 1.4 meters (4.6 feet), obscuring the foundation stones.

This isn't the first time excavations around Namdaemun have been made public. The picture accompanying the Joongang Ilbo article, like the one below (from here) doesn't quite make clear how deep the excavation is.


This photo, however, does:


I couldn't see this photo (from here)...


...without being reminded of this one, from when Namdaemun's doors were opened for the first time in a long time in 2006:


One wonders how well that painting survived the fire. At the time of the opening in 2006, the city tried to sell it as the 'first time the doors had been opened in 99 years,' but subsequent inquiries proved that figure to be off by at least 50 years. Also worth noting from the photo above of the roofless base is that reconstruction seems to be going rather slowly.

It wasn't always called Canada Day

Above is an 1872 ad for Dominion Day celebrations, taken from this book:


Last summer my father and I were in the local library and he saw several books piled near the door that were being given away, including this one and another partner book about Canadian styles, both published at Canada's centennial. Some of the things in the latter book include Canadian brands and a look at movies about mounties.



As much as Berton (who I've mentioned before here) notes the changes that took place during Canada's first 100 years, one wonders if the 43 years since the centennial have seen just as many changes (not that Canada would be alone in that).