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Younggoog Park, Minister-Counsellor of Public Affairs at the Korea Embassy in Ottawa.This is a very useful statement for those opposed to AES, and is important because it's the only example I know of of someone associated with the Korean government criticizing them. The words and deeds of government ministries and politicians in Korea have normally been supportive of them. The article has comments from Don Baker as well:
“Their reactionary views and opinions do not represent the sentiment of Koreans toward Canadians or other foreign teachers,” Park told the CBC’s The Current.
“There's always been a little ethnocentrism in Korea,” says Don Baker, Associate Professor, Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia.It's nice to see the journalist consulting someone who knows a lot about Korea. The work of Baker's that I've read has had to do with the Kwangju Uprising (he was in the city during its immediate aftermath, and his harrowing trip to Seoul on a 'local bus' with Linda Lewis is related in her book "Laying Claim to the Memory of May" (and can be read here)) and one of his essays was the basis for this post.
The people involved in the anti-English teacher movement, Baker says, are products of an education system that for years taught that Koreans were a pure race.
“Until about five years ago Koreans were taught in school that Koreans were a pure race and unlike other people they've never had a mixture of genes; they're a pure people. The government has now changed that because they've got over a million foreign workers there.”
Baker, who travels to South Korea frequently, says the situation is exacerbated by the fact that the country has a shortage of women as a result of selective abortion.
“Koreans want to learn English, but they get turned off by the behaviour of the foreigners, especially when foreign men are dating some of the more attractive women in Korean society when there's a shortage of women in Korea.”
He also notes that Koreans are “extremely nationalistic” and take offence when some English teachers show their ignorance of and lack of interest in Korea’s 4,000-year culture.
“I've seen westerners in Korea who show, just the way they talk, that they really have no clue of the sophistication of Korean culture, and that really irritates Koreans.”
When I was first working for the hagwans here there were no checks of any kind, you didn’t need to show that you had a degree, just if the owner invited you to be an employee, and agreed to “sponsor” (take some limited responsibility for) you, then you got the working (teaching) visa. But then that hagwan owner didn’t “own” you, you could quit (or be let go) and work for someone else, or go entirely independent teaching privates, whatever — until your one-year visa ran out.I asked the commenter, Professor David Mason, more about what it was like in those days (thanks to him for answering my questions):
In that “freedom of employment” factor it was much better. It should be noted that there were relatively very few Westerners teaching English here in those days, nothing remotely like today; those that were here were more appreciated for “helping Korea get modernized” and were not any kind of a negative social issue (the G.I.s handily filled the role of disparaged foreign demon).
It was more of a "Wild West" feeling I guess, few rules to go by, few other people to talk to about how it goes or get teaching tips or what to avoid, etc. We had no Internet, and even the Lonely Planet books were quite inadequate back then, so it was really a totally different deal -- the lack of information and contacts -- there were just the other foreigners you could meet in the cheap hostels, a few in Itaewon, some places with bulletin boards where you could read a few posted notes and get leads for jobs.Regarding university jobs, he wrote that
There were so few native-English-speaking people here in 1982-83 (my introduction) that weren't in the Army or with the embassy or some big corporation -- but the demand for learning English was already getting pretty high, more for young office workers than for the kids -- just walking down the street Koreans would sometimes come up to you and offer jobs. Universities only had a few available teaching positions, and they were always looking for somebody else to hire.
Any native speaker with at least a B.A. (and light skin-color) who could teach English classes (hopefully without causing a scandal with the female students, which they sometimes complained / warned openly about). They've always had a pretty fair turnover-rate, far above the rate for Korean professors, as native-speakers went home or to other countries for various reasons, and the best teachers moved on up-the-ladder to better jobs -- I guess that's still the same these days.Clearly, the rules were far more lax back then. As to when this changed, in his original comment he wrote,
Especially the universities outside of Seoul were always searching, often going a semester or two with the job unfilled, because back in those days most of the native speakers only wanted to live in Seoul, for the obvious reasons of less language barrier and more amenities / entertainment.
Most of the jobs available outside universities were with private institutes (hagwan), public schools didn't use native speaker teachers. Some companies, especially exporters, wanted classes for their guys directly in the offices, but that was illegal, just a side-job. Ditto for classes of wealthy children, held in the homes. Sometimes even government officials wanted it for themselves or their kids, and even though that was illegal you were protected from getting busted... All that part is still the same these days, I guess.
If one of the relatively few operating language hagwans or export companies that wanted a teacher sponsored you for a visa, it meant that you could work pretty much any job you wanted to for that one year, and even if that hagwan fired you or you quit, you could still work until the visa was over. So there was a lot of job-switching and freelancing. No degree at all was required for these jobs except at universities.
It was like that until 1984, when the French scandal impelled the government to impose restrictions such as the original visa sponsor becoming your slave-owner. Many good and self-respecting teachers left Korea at that point, in a kind of protest.Inquiries asking for more information about this 'French scandal' received the following replies, first from commenter Seouldout:
If memory serves me right there was a Frenchman who was arrested for illegally teaching. English I believe – this is long before Quebecois overran the place. There were allegations of sexual hijinks; not rape or molestation or train groping, but lots of consenting fornication with Korean women…who ought to have paid better attention in the Korean ethics class. They must’ve been worried they’d be caught outside after curfew, so they hooked up with him – those were the days. Anyway, upon his deportation at Kimpo the press (all of them, the entire nation’s) recorded him announcing how much he enjoyed banging their women. And how much the Korean women enjoyed being banged. He may have even declared, “I shall return. To bang again. Au revoir.”Sanshinseon replied:
The new laws effectively stopped future scandals.
The way i remember the 1984 French Scandal differs just slightly from seouldout — as is typical with folklore — my feeble brain does not include airport boasting, but says that he returned to France he published an article bragging about how easy it was to make money teaching English despite being French, and how easy it was to seduce/bang naive Korean virgins, tell them any kind of BS. A Korean guy in Paris sent a translation of it to all K newspapers, and a shitstorm broke out. We got new laws. I would guess that details on this could only be found in old K papers — the Times & Herald didn’t usually publish much scandal back then — just as today, they still cover much up…More information was provided by Michael Breen in his introduction to ATEK's English teacher's guide to Korea:
I don’t know if this was the start, but I recall a howl or protest about 25 years ago after a Frenchman wrote an article in Le Monde, the French daily, describing how he had enjoyed life in Korea, drinking, seducing women and teaching language despite being completely unqualified. After this, people started looking askance at foreign teachers, and the authorities introduced regulations requiring them, some what unnecessarily as many were just conversation teachers, to have university degrees.After reading this, I asked Tony Hellmann if he could ask Michael Breen if he knew anything more; he didn't, but suggesting searching the Chosun Ilbo's archives. I didn't realize at the time that pre-1990 archives were available online, but after a discussion with Benjamin Wagner, he found a Korean-language article referring to the Le Monde article, which led me to the closest university library, which has Le Monde on microfilm.
Making Won in Seoul
Some young French found in South Korea the opportunity to "make won" and earn a very decent living. There was a need for a good knowledge of English and, above all, their mother tongue. The Koreans are indeed fond of translations and lessons to develop their commercial relations with France.
----
Correspondence
Seoul. - Luc landed at Kimpo airport on a summer day in 1981 with a cheap cardboard suitcase as his baggage. After India, Thailand, the Philippines ... travels for nothing. He wanted to forget this crisis and the thirty-six poorly paid and depressing "small jobs" that led to nothing in France.
"I got there by chance. Truly at the end of my rope. I met a guy in Manila who told me about a Frenchman in Seoul who wanted to share an apartment. A Professor. He said it was possible to work . I still had a few dollars for a ticket. Now it's been two years. "
Luc hardly looks like a Young Turk. He blends in discreetly with his surroundings with his out-of-fashion suit, outdated tie and his 50 franc Made in Korea shoes . But he has a chance here: he is French and speaks with ease a high school level English. As a result, many doors have opened. To his dazzled eyes, they open the caverns of Ali Baba where dollars can be picked up with a shovel. But it would be hard to find here the Forty Thieves. Koreans pay on the nail.
Because Korea is to host the Olympic Games in 1988, and because it is after the African market, French became the second language taught after English, supplanting German and even Japanese. The general-president Chun Doo-hwan has registered his daughters in the French Language Department at Seoul National University. The Land of Morning Calm feels bulimia for our language. Some young Koreans choose the literature, but most, more pragmatic, usually study French 'in order to work in export' or to later study specialized fields in France: Design, architecture, fashion ... Alas! Korean Teachers have made of Rivarol’s idiom a somewhat unattractive 'wooden language'. Students know this and therefore prefer native French, so French lecturers have a bright future ahead of them.
By teaching his mother tongue, Luke needed only a few months to have a comfortable apartment. He goes twice a year on vacation. For one, he takes the grand tour of Southeast Asia in good hotels – revenge on the 'road' – and for the other he goes to France to 'see family' and spend his American 'green paper.'
"Here," he says, pleased, "I have the advantage of belonging to a small foreign community - less than three hundred people -thus much in demand. Unlike us, the Koreans do not want to throw out their immigrants. "
Pierre's Miracle:
Michel, too, had his share of tough times in France. Teaching in a northern village in France with a simple BEPC [Junior High Degree equivalent], his future seemed gloomy. In a few years of teaching, he had lost faith. "I could not stand to fight constantly with unruly students anymore,” he sighed. "There is no such problem here; students are motivated and the teacher still represents something ... "
At twenty-eight years, he seems much older. Small, rather unassuming, he lives with a couple of friends. Pierre, who is married, is a French teacher at the university of foreign languages, Wae Dae. He followed a path different from that of others. Tired of selling insurance in the country with his father, he came to Korea 'to try to see it' after a long holiday in Indonesia and Hong Kong. He dreamed thereafter of going to Japan and Canada.
"I was in Seoul for one week, when a Korean addressed me in the street. It was the director of the French service of Radio Korea. It happened just like in a film; he asked me if I spoke French. Yes. We met the next day, and he offered me on the spot a proofreading position and a very good salary."
This miracle happened four years ago. Since then, Pierre has married a woman from a very good Korean family he encountered in a chic club in the city. Michel has not had the chance to get a permanent contract in a university. He sells his French a la carte by juggling between Universities. He also records from time to time, at the Ministry of Defense, voice-overs of films to be presented to French-speaking military delegations. Some private corporations, such as Pohang and Lucky can pay almost 10 000 francs for thirty to sixty minutes of recording, provided that the intermediary wins a below-the-table equivalent. "At this price, we do not dare say anything. On the contrary, sometimes it happens that we are paid by others just 2,000 francs for the same job!" Not too shabby! *
This is the charm of an enterprising country where one can succeed by working. There is no question of earning a living dishonestly. The police are vigilant and it’s easy to end up in jail. But the young high school graduate or university drop-out stuck in an unsatisfying situation can find a job here. Yet must they pass through the "French lobby" of diplomats, business consultants and other key personage... Some appointments and smiles: French in Korea like to host [or receive] each other. The diplomats, certainly appreciated, do not play a decisive role. The country is expensive, tough, and foreigners have a tendency to help each other.
In less than a year, Luc was awarded two contracts in two different universities. Both nine hours per week. Both 9000 francs a month. More than six hours of 'little lessons' with him weekly at 150 francs each. His reputation as a teacher has snowballed. Thanks to the students and their parents, he found translation jobs for the ministry of sports, English-to-French, for 200 francs a page of a thousand letters. It is not uncommon for him to receive three hundred page jobs. Speaking like a Stakhanovite, he said with a smile he'd still like to teach at the French Alliance, but doesn’t really have the time!
All those who newly arrive do not have the same luck. But their drop-zone is the same: the Embassy, the Cultural Center and the French Alliance. Who to see? Who has power? First,the cultural adviser, the Education manager at the Cultural Center and the president of the Alliance. All three have well garnered address books and act as an interface between the newcomers and Koreans. Each year they award hundreds of hours of work per week in the universities, schools, banks, corporations in the francophone sector, in the same way that they have their connections in French radio and television broadcasts, lesson programs at the National Assembly and the French-language newspaper, Le Courrier de la Corée.
The more enterprising candidates do not hesitate, moreover, to market to themselves and place, for example, ads in major bookstores in Seoul, as soon as they have a fixed address and telephone number. They make themselves known in places that channel anyone interested in French in South Korea.
The most favorable time for newcomers is two weeks before the bulk dispatching de jobs by the cultural center (which this formulation would not delight**), and renewal of contracts by universities before the fall semester. Later in the year, a successful installation [in Korea to live and work] would require more time.
Korea still has a bad reputation - probably less deserved than before - which probably explains why it still has ‘niches’ available. All the French met in Korea say they want to 'move to Japan'. But few are so lucky. Though arrangements can be found with the Korean government, the Japanese are hunting systematically all those who try to move to Japan to work.
A foreigner is irreplaceable to teach his language. However, it is known in Japan that foreigners are not so necessary anymore, while Koreans, more modest, are more welcoming. French teachers in Seoul, waiting to 'make yen', 'make won'.
Pierre works from Monday afternoon to Friday morning and escapes every weekend with his wife to Tae-Chon beach or Mount Sorak, or to Fukuoka in Japan. A dream life. Yet they give themselves five more years in the land of the morning calm to earn enough to "have a business of their own on the French Riviera...". Michel explains: "It was nice to make lots of money, but Korea will always remain just a step [before eventually going somewhere else such as Japan]."
Marc Charuel
I left back to America in the fall of 1983, the French scandal happened in 1984, and when I returned in early 1986 there were these new rules. No teaching at all on a tourist visa, and when a school or company sponsored your teaching visa they became your "owner" -- you couldn't have any other jobs unless they officially approved it. And if you stopped that job for any reason you just had to leave the country within five days, returning if you had another job that would sponsor your visa, or if not, not. Reentering on a tourist visa to find a new job, if you hadn't found one before your left, would be your only option. I remember some good quality longtime teachers who left in disgust and protest between 1985 and 1987, because they felt disrespected by all this.As can be seen from the exaggerated way the 'French scandal' is remembered above, and as one can assume from the legal changes that quickly followed, the Le Monde article was blown out of proportion once the Korean media got a hold of it and called for changes to keep penniless, unqualified foreign vagabonds from coming and making larges sums through language teaching and going after their female students.
A bill has been proposed that would require immigration officers to submit a court-issued warrant before entering a building or house to search for undocumented immigrants. Rep. Lee Chun-seok of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) proposed a revision bill Monday that calls for overhauling the Immigration Control Law.Comprehensive indeed. Reining in some of the powers of immigration police strikes me as a good thing, seeing as they seem to have far fewer limits on their powers than other law enforcement officers. Does anyone know if tasers are used against Korean demonstrators by riot police or regular police? I know they've been used against migrant workers before, but don't know if they've been used on them exclusively. Removing the provision that bans political activities of foreigners is certainly interesting, and could certainly open up new avenues (and makes sense if some people are allowed to vote but could still technically be arrested while voting). Excluding foreigners who have received a suspended sentence from a local court from deportation also seems to make sense - if the court saw fit to give them no jail time, one imagines the crime would not be severe enough to warrant deportation... but then considering how many people who have committed sex crimes in the past have gotten off with only suspended sentences, perhaps that's not the best argument.
The Human Rights Commission has repeatedly recommended the government revise the law that permits immigration crackdowns with a warrant. The commission expressed concern that immigration officers tend to enter workplaces employing illegal foreigners without producing IDs and carry out raids without seeking permission, often inflicting physical injury.
Three people were killed and 24 were wounded during crackdowns between January 2005 and August 2009, according to the Ministry of Justice. Under the proposal, night raids would be banned, even if a warrant is issued. Instead, the bill calls for random questioning in accordance with the rules that apply to Korean nationals.
The bill also would remove a provision that bans political activities of foreigners, as Korea has already granted suffrage to them in certain elections. In May 2005, the government revised the Election Law to allow foreigners who have lived in Korea for more than three years to vote in local elections. Foreign absentee voters are already allowed to cast ballots by mail or at their embassies here.
The number of illegal aliens decreased to 181,331 in October, down from 210,596 during the same period a year ago, according to the Korean Immigration Service.
The bill also calls for excluding foreigners who have received a suspended sentence from a local court from deportation. In addition, if a suspected illegal alien challenges a deportation order, the government must complete the review of his or her right to stay here within 20 days. The bill also would require the immigration service to provide deportation orders and documents that explain the process to foreigners in their native languages.
Cdn city puts Stephen Colbert "on notice," offers him position during OlympicsThe Ottawa Sun also mentions that Colbert "called for “Saskatchewhiners” to “unclench their frosty sphincters.”" Awesome. The first article continues:
RICHMOND, B.C. - The city that will play host to long track speed skating during the 2010 Olympics is putting satirical talk show host Stephen Colbert on notice.
Colbert, who recently announced he's sponsoring the cash-strapped U.S. speed skating team during the upcoming Winter Games, has given Canadians a strict wag of the finger for denying the American squad ice time at the Olympic oval in Richmond, B.C.
Colbert has called Canucks "syrup-sucking Canadian iceholes" and has urged his "Colbert Report" viewers to send in letters demanding Canadians cease their icehole-ish behaviour.
City of Richmond spokesman Ted Townsend has sent a letter of his own to Colbert's studios in New York, offering the former "Daily Show" correspondent an olive branch.The Sun adds:
"Dear Cousin," the letter begins.
"As a proud syrup sucker, I am saddened that you would cast aspersions on Canadians as part of your otherwise laudable quest to assist the cash-strapped American speed skating team.
"We have always welcomed our friends from south of the border with open arms (well, except in 1812). In fact, we've always fondly considered you as our American 'cousins' and politely tolerated you, even when you were in an imperialistic mood."
Townsend wrote in the letter that international skaters have never been barred from the Olympic oval, though they have been asked to follow rules to get on the ice.
"You might have noticed that us syrup-suckers are big on rules and regulating things; that's how we got universal public medicare," the letter reads.
“We just can’t stand the thought that someone would think we aren’t playing fair,” the letter reads. “So as the Canadian Iceholes who also happen to be the proprietor of the Richmond Olympic Oval, we are inviting you to find yourself some sled dogs and venture forth to our great frozen wasteland to be our guest at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in February.”Okay, I'll give credit for playing on stereotypes of Canada as being permanently covered in snow. The first article continues:
But to show there are no hard feelings, Townsend, who calls himself "chief syrup sucker," has offered Colbert a position as ombudsman of treatment for American speed skaters during the 2010 Games.So in other words, the title should read: "Cdn City to Colbert: 'Drink anti-freeze and die.'" Y'know, I think Rain's response to Colbert was more entertaining and dignified, in comparison to snide remarks about health care, the metric system (what a zinger that one was!) and the War of 1812. As someone who sat on a bus tour of Washington in high school and listened to classmates cheer when our (American) guide mentioned the burning of the White House during the War of 1812, I find it worth mentioning that it was the British who burned it - not Canadians.
The city has included a pink toque with the letter, which Townsend said could be part of Colbert's uniform during the Games.
"We hope you will take us up on this offer, dear cousin," Townsend letter reads.
"We suggest you start the training for your new position now. A good start would be to acclimatize yourself by drinking at least one litre (oops, sorry, make that a quart, I forgot that you Americans don't do metric) of radiator anti-freeze fluid per day."
Activists protest S.Korea's HIV testing for foreign workersNotice the mention made of a 'migrants' trade union'. The name of this union is the Migrants' Trade Union (MTU), and their site is here. The Seoul High Court recognized their right to form a union in January 2007, but this decision was appealed by the government, and the case is pending. So this Korea Herald article from last week isn't quite correct:
By AFP - Tue Dec 1, 9:06 AM PST
SEOUL (AFP) - Activists Tuesday filed a petition with South Korea's human rights watchdog, seeking an end to mandatory HIV tests for some foreign workers.
A group representing HIV carriers, a migrants' trade union and three other rights groups said in their petition that the policy breaches the rights of migrant workers, according to the National Human Rights Commission which received the document.
Foreign applicants must prove they do not have HIV to qualify for work in the entertainment sector or low-skilled industries in South Korea. But local workers are not required to do so, Amnesty International says.
South Korea also requires HIV testing of would-be language teachers from overseas.
The Ministry of Labour obliges all low-skilled work applicants to submit physical examination results including HIV testing in their countries of origin. Upon arrival in South Korea, they are tested a second time for HIV and if positive are subject to deportation, Amnesty said in a report published in October.
Such practices are "in breach of the rights to human worth and dignity and rights to work" the five groups said in the petition filed to coincide with World AIDS Day. They said discrimination against foreigners on grounds of nationality, social status or illness was in breach of the constitution.
"According to South Korea's AIDS prevention law, a person's consent is required before testing for HIV. But foreign workers are made to receive health checks without being informed that they include a HIV test," Youn Gabriel, the head of Nanuri+, an HIV carriers' group, said.
"Even foreigners who have received work permits are deported from the country if they test positive for HIV," Youn was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency. More than 600 foreigners have been forced to leave since the late 1980s, he said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has urged South Korea to remove emigration and immigration controls on foreigners with HIV, noting it is one of 12 countries in the world with such restrictions.
A group of foreign nationals working in Korea has formed a labor union, the law firm representing them said Tuesday, in a first for the country, according to Yonhap news.Actually, there was another attempt by foreign English teachers to unionize back in 2001 or 2002 which resulted in the presence of gangsters and riot police outside the hagwon, if I remember correctly. That story just popped into my head now - I'll see if I can track down more information.
Five foreign lecturers working at an educational institute in Incheon, west of Seoul, received approval from local authorities on Nov. 24 to launch the union, according to the firm. Its members later increased to nine.
Today, we got 'Concluding observations of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' on S.Korea. [A]mong the recommendations,The last sentence was certainly seen as good news by the MTU. It goes on to list other recommendations by the Committee, including the following:
20. The Committee is concerned that migrant workers are subject to exploitation, discrimination and unpaid wages.
The Committee recommends that the Employment Permit System that has already recognized migrant workers as workers entitled to Labour Law protection be further reviewed. The Committee recommends that particular attention be paid to the fact that the three month period stipulated for a change in job is highly insufficient. This is especially true in the current economic situation, in which migrant workers often have little choice but to accept jobs with unfavorable work conditions just to remain regular. The Committee further recommends that the State party uphold the High Court’s decision to grant legal status to the Migrants’ Trade Union. [Emphasis added]
23. The Committee is concerned that, notwithstanding the fact that the State party legislation penalizes trafficking not only for prostitution or sexual exploitation but for any profit purpose, a high number of women and children continue to be trafficked from, through and within the country for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labour, especially women workers originally arriving on an E6 visa (entertainment). The Committee is particularly concerned about the low number of prosecutions and convictions of traffickers. (Art. 10)Well, they needn't worry about monitoring E6 visas. As noted here, when Immigration announced it was considering removing HIV tests from the E9 and E2 visa application process, it was announced that
The Committee recommends that the State party intensify its efforts to combat trafficking in human beings, especially women and children, for any purpose, inter alia, by:
(a) strengthening monitoring of issuance of E6 visas
"There will be no changes for E-6 visa applicants. We do not deal with non-professional workers as the Labor Ministry is responsible for AIDS tests on E-9 visa applicants," Ahn Kyu-seok, the KIS spokesman told the Korea Times.It's hard to see such a quick dismissal of changes for E-6 visa applicants regarding HIV testing as anything but an acknowledgment that the E-6 visa is being used for sex work.
At the very least, it’s clear that there is a severe lack of sex education in the educational system across Korea. In fact, sex education here more or less remains stuck in the 1980s, as students often receive just an overview of the subject through simple cartoons that rely heavily on metaphors.'Related agencies' are passing the buck, however:
“All I remember about sex education is a videotape that showed a swarm of bees carrying pollen. That’s the only sex education I got from school,” recalled 35-year-old Choi Yu-jeong, a graphic designer living in northern Seoul, who attended middle school here in the late 1980s.
Fast forward to 2009, and things aren’t much different despite rapid changes in almost every other aspect of society.
Videos that teach through metaphors are still used by health teachers, and many students find them boring and useless. According to a survey conducted by the Aha Sexuality Education and Counseling Center for Youth in 2007, 43.8 percent of teenagers said the sex education they received from schools was neither helpful nor practical.
At the same time, the country is grappling with a high level of abortions and an increase in sexual crimes against and among youth. The number of abortions totaled 350,000 in 2005, according to the latest government figures, which is much higher than many other countries, experts say. Additionally, the National Police Agency said in July that sexual violence committed by teenagers jumped from 1,165 incidents in 2003 to a whopping 2,717 in 2008.
“It’s the schools’ role to allocate their budgets and decide whether they will have sex education programs,” said Cho Myeong-yeon, an official with the student health team of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.I've taught students from that school (hey, how often do you see Banghwa-dong in an English language newspaper?). Mind you, kids there might be better off being taught traffic safety; two students have died after being hit by cars in the last two years.
Earlier this year, the ministry issued new guidelines that suggest schools nationwide provide at least 17 hours of health classes each year. The courses, it says, should deal with seven different subjects including diseases, personal hygiene and sex education.
Some observers applaud the move, but they say it’s simply a start - not a solution.
“It’s a great achievement, primarily because we had no guidelines in the past,” said Kim Hye-sun, a chairperson at the Seoul Health Teachers Association and a health teacher at Samjeong Elementary School in Banghwa-dong, Gangseo District, western Seoul. “But we have to teach seven different subjects within 17 hours, and that isn’t enough to continuously educate children on diverse aspects of sex in organized ways.”
The shocking news of a middle school girl who became pregnant after she was raped on her way home from school and went into labor in the classroom last month had pushed the Health and Welfare Ministry to promote better sex education in schools. Afraid that she might be expelled from school, the young girl had kept her condition a secret from her teachers, parents and school mates. She was taking her final exams on June 27 when her water broke and she gave birth to a boy upon being rushed to the hospital.That's from a July 8, 1996 Korea Times article. Needless to say, I'm skeptical that much will come out of this current call for change, though I'd love to be proven wrong.
Wearing an obstetrical binder when she began getting big, the middle school girl hid her pregnancy from her teachers and friends at school. According to her homeroom teacher, because she was always a quiet child, no one thought anything was amiss. And since her working parents spent little time at home, they too did not notice anything was wrong, she added.
The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has decided to retest all of its 1,120 foreign English teachers for AIDS and drugs -- regardless of visa type -- and plans to continue retesting them on a yearly basis. Other provincial education offices are instituting similar plans.Read the rest of the article here.
There are 59 countries that have some form of HIV-related restrictions, but with this new retesting scheme Korea has become one of only six countries with the most restrictive forms in place.[...]
The Korea Immigration Service has explained that they will not be requiring E-2 visa holders to provide additional AIDS and drug test results when renewing visas with current employers.
"Please note that in this case," the KIS announced in July, "if you have already submitted relevant documents, then you do not need to submit them (again) when you extend your sojourn period." The SMOE, however, has told teachers that the "HIV and drug test" is "a yearly requirement" and further warned that the test results are "an inspectable item at our office by the Korean government auditors and failure to it turn it in will have an impact on your employment with SMOE."
For you don't returned returned within long time there happened trouble yesterday that I has been arrested to Japanese gendarme as reporting military secret to you and after 10 hours examined several questions, I could come back to my boarding house. Received telegram and I shall do your order.[...] If you don't come back I can't help plenty troubles.London makes no comment on the style, however, only using it to illustrate his many woes. As for official communication, I imagine, with so many foreign 'advisors,' during the late Joseon and Daehan Empire eras, that there was better proofreading done than these days, but I'm not really sure. If anyone's interested in how things were done in 1959, this description of the water clock at Deoksugung might be of interest. In the essay looking at the history of expat publications in Korea that opens Scott Burgeson's book Korea Bug, he notes that Peace Corps newsletters, particularly The Noodle, also used to poke fun at such language, such as in fake letters to the newsletter asking for English lessons, along the lines of 'I want to intercourse with you.' (I don't have the book with me at the moment - if someone wants to send or post one of those letters in the comments, please do.) (And speaking of Scott, there's a lengthy interview with him in the Korea Herald here.)
Getting Down to EarthMoving past the obvious differences in the terms on which foreigners meet Koreans these days (not just your driver or housemaid anymore), and the fact that Korean films can teach a lot of the 'riper' slang these days, there is a book I can think of that has such Korean slang: Making Out in Korean. Of course, that book hasn't always been so popular here (it also appeared in some of the earliest posts at Anti-English Spectrum in 2005).
I have in my private library (very private, alongside certain translations Chinese novels and outpourings of Parisian high spirits) a little pamphlet I picked up for a few cents in the market at Pusan in 1954. The title of this pamphlet is "American Slang," and it is mostly in Korean, since it is a manual for study by Koreans who wish to acquire language proficiency in order to get jobs with American agencies, specifically Army units. However, the words that are defined and discussed by the Korean philologist appear in English as well as Hangul transliteration, so I know what the subject matter is.
I should like to quote from this manual, but I know that if I do so in such a way as to give an accurate idea as to its flavor, even my very tolerant editor will suppress this article. (He has told me that he sometimes receives complaints even now about the nature of some of the material appearing in this 'family-type' publication.)
Suffice to say that among learned dissertations on the usage of "Habba Habba" (Obs.?) and "I wanna see a man about a dog" (Archaic?), there is a preponderance of material dealing with sexual intercourse and/or personal abuse in those ageless Anglo-Saxon terms which anyone who has ever been associated with the U.S. Army, however reluctantly, will instantly and perhaps squeamishly recognize.
Now this seems to me an aspect of cultural interchange that has heretofore been shamefully one-sided. How many times has your housemaid or driver come out with something approximately English in mixed company that produces snickers or blushes due to its Rabelaisian frankness? How many times have cultivated and high-minded Koreans (provided any of these trust you enough) asked you in private whether certain English words or phrases ought to be used openly or not? Obviously the Koreans are trying to find out the score. But are we Americans?
It is not enough, in the view of this rich English rhetoric of my little pamphlet, for Americans to be able to call someone a "stone-head" in Korean. They can't fool us; they must have some riper epithets in their vocabularies than this. But how are we to learn them? No enterprising publisher, to my knowledge, has put together a comparably rich pamphlet of "Korean Slang."
This is a project which I recommend to UNESCO, the USIS, and especially the Army information program, on the principle that, until we have it, our effectiveness as representatives of western culture is severely handicapped. (-1964)
At six, she followed her Korean mother to a ramshackle bar and discovered that her mother was for sale to U.S. servicemen. On the way home, alone, the little girl had an even more traumatic experience: a man lured her into an alley and assaulted her. At eight, she learned why classmates jeered "half-caste!" at her: her father had been a white G.I. At 16, she was a full-fledged prostitute working among American soldiers who liked her slim Occidental legs and ample breasts. Now, at 19, after six abortions and uncounted liaisons with every variety of G.I., Annie Park is the most-talked-about girl in South Korea. With the help of a ghostwriter, she has published a bestselling autobiography that at last forces Koreans to think about something they would rather forget—the problem of illegitimate half-castes. There are an estimated 20,000 half-caste children in Korea; 500 to 600 more are born each year. Sadly, even in their homeland, they are displaced persons from birth. Under the Confucian concept of tightly knit families, Korea's half-castes are considered outcasts. And the mixed-blood children remind many Koreans of the shame of widespread prostitution and of the subservient role Koreans have often had to play to the bigger and richer G.I.'s. My Forsaken Star has been serialized in newspapers. Work began last week on a movie based on the book, and a television series is planned. But Koreans seem to savor the book more for its lurid details of commercial love than for the insights it gives into the plight of half-castes. Some U.S. welfare groups have actually come to grips with the half-caste problem. In the past ten years, 5,670 mixed-blood children have been adopted by families in the U.S. through such groups as the Holt Adoption Program, the National Catholic Welfare Conference and the Child Placement Service. But the vast majority of these children are the offspring of white G.I.s. Finding foster parents for Negro-fathered children is much harder. With that in mind, the Pearl S. Buck Foundation began operating in Korea just last month. Its initial hopes are modest: to provide funds directly to mothers of Negro-Korean children so that the little lost half-castes will have at least some chance of growing up with enough food to eat in homes of their own.Does anyone care to suggest a translation of “My Forsaken Star”? If it could be tracked down, it might make for interesting reading. It's too bad Naver’s newspaper search only goes back to 1970.
Another rather interesting Time article from 1969 looks at the darker side of the Pearl S. Buck foundation. It describes the muckracking activities of Philadelphia Magazine, and its
willingness to take on just about anyone—even so unlikely a figure as Pearl Buck. There she was, some days ago, a silver-haired, 77-year-old Nobel-and Pulitzer-prize winning author, meeting the press to try to cover up for a colleague. He had been accused, in Philadelphia's pages, of mishandling charitable funds and making homosexual advances to the Korean boys he was supposed to be helping. "A bunch of downright lies," said Miss Buck gamely, but Theodore Findley Harris, 38, had already resigned as president and executive director of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation.Younghill Kang (who I've mentioned before), the first Korean American (or, as the title of his second book put it, “Oriental Yankee”) writer, received a lot of praise for his first book The Grass Roof, but, as this article puts it:The foundation was set up in 1964 to help Amerasian children in Korea, where youngsters fathered by U.S. soldiers are spat upon for their half-caste status. In April of this year, Philadelphia's Reporter-Writer Greg Walter listened to tapes a local radio station had made (but had never used) in which four Korean boys described unwilling homosexual contact with Harris. He then began digging. He traveled across the U.S., talking to former and current foundation employees, to board members and benefactors, to the young men on the tapes, to Miss Buck herself. Harris repeatedly refused to see him. As Walter tells it, Harris was a dancing instructor who, in 1963, wanted to be just a gigolo and began ingratiating himself into the comfortable Bucks County life of Pearl Buck. He fawned, she loved it; together they wrote a mawkish book (For Spacious Skies) about finding one another. A year later, she made him president of the new foundation. [...]
But there still was no effective machinery in Korea. Harris eventually got around to appointing an overseer there; he was the first in a long line of "permanent representatives," all of whom, says Walter, have complained about the lack of money and direction from Delancey Place. But there has always been money to spruce things up just before Miss Buck arrives. Once, at the foundation's center at Sosa, Korea, $5,000 went into hurry-up redecorations, although there apparently was not enough to put up a fence around a small pond on the property. One evening during the Statesiders' visit, the body of a four-year-old was found floating in it. Harris periodically brought Amerasians to the U.S. under various foundation study programs. There was difficulty in getting one, Bob Park, out of Korea because he was of draft age. But Harris found him so attractive that he had Miss Buck pull strings. Park, now a student at the University of Arizona, remembers: "One night on the way to America he asked me about my father and I began to cry; he kissed me on the neck. When I would go to bed he would hold me in his arms. I did not like, but I thought this is the way American father treat his son." Recently, Park and some of the other boys complained about Harris' conduct, and the foundation responded—by withdrawing its support of Park and two others. [...] Walter... once attended a writers' workshop run by Miss Buck. For his recent article he interviewed her twice. The first session was easygoing and pleasant, but then Walter began to probe. "She told me I was vile. She said she was ashamed of me, that I had been her favorite pupil, but that now she was terribly disappointed in me."
He is said to have commented that it was his great misfortune that Pearl Buck’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel about China, The Good Earth, was published in the same year as The Grass Roof.More articles mentioning the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, or mixed race children, are listed below: Foundation celebrates memorial hall opening (this has a bit of background) Beneath the shadow of prejudice (a good article, but the link is broken). Smile that challenged ‘one blood’ ‘Hines mania’ leaves bitter taste in mouths of biracial Koreans (this has lots of statistics) Ward now proud of his heritage Heartwarming or cautionary, Ward’s story resonates here