Demand for English learning is growing and the number of native speaking instructors working in Korea increases every year, but problems with their qualifications are also never ending.From there it goes on to act as an advertisement for the company. Interesting idea, though: Slag off foreign teachers to advertise your own company (in a "news" article). The company uses teachers in the US via video chatting. For those hagwon teachers who are annoyed at having to write student reports every month, the company promises parents a report after every class.
However, because the enormous cost of directly inviting excellent native speaking English instructors to Korea cannot be borne [by hagwons], the situation is that there is no choice but to set up problematic teachers as teachers. Due to the absolute shortage of native speaking teachers like these, there is a need for an alternative to qualitative improvement of Korea's native speaking English education, and demands for this are increasing.
Recently, however, WOW EduNet (www.wowedunet.com) has suggested alternatives to the problems of native speaking teachers.
Barking Up Wrong Tree
From time to time most article writers cobble together ideas and statistics, and are less than happy with the result. Sometimes the facts are forced into a straightjacket formed of the writer’s preconceptions. Such seems to have happened with an article headed “English, French, German. Foreigners Enjoy Better Life With Mother Tongues” (K.T. 23 Aug.) by Mr. Kim Chang-young.
First, the preconception that foreigners get rich here taking advantage of generous, gullible Koreans. Mr. Kim establishes this to his owners satisfaction, by referring to an American here who used stolen credit cards in dept. stores where no (Korean) saleswoman “suspected him.” He was befriended by “Korean women in military campsides” who provided him with lodging and money and were impressed by his “petty presents in the mornings.”
Secondly, the preconception that foreigners teaching their own language aren’t up to much: “endowed with nothing more than (the ability to) speak their own language.” Reference is made to a Frenchman who came here after “vagabonding in the Philippines.”
Thirdly, the preconception that “Korea is a paradise” where foreigners can make easy money. As evidence, three other Frenchmen joined the first here, a real rags to riches story (arrival with a worn suitcase, now making two overseas trips a year, earning 900,000 won a month). “Seoul was a utopia where the vagrant could earn money enough to buy an apartment in just a few months by teaching French, English.”
Fourthly, statistics are given of offenses committed by foreigners here during recent years… which perhaps ties up with the “vagabonding” mentioned earlier by Mr. Kim or maybe a gloss on a xenophobic view of foreigners.
Fifthly, sandwiched between the above is an indication of the scale of illegally-working foreigners here – of “150,000 dwelling here for over three months … only 338 of them have employment visas … in violation of pertinent laws.” Curiously, the thrust of the article is directed at the much smaller group of English teachers, “1,700-odd foreigners are presumed” to earn their living this way.
How to comment? First, that most countries have the problem of foreigners who overstay their permitted time, often as “illegal aliens.”
Secondly, that “demand” for English teaching is high, particularly so since the declared official policy in Korea (1981) has been to teach English the natural way, speaking first then reading, writing. (A much applauded policy.) “Supply” of competent persons to teach even the Korean teachers who are to take charge of spoken English classes has, apparently, not been attended to. This is a matter for Koreans to take care of.
Thirdly, language schools are NOT known for paying teachers well. (I checked on the schools earlier this year intending to write about them). Often under-capitalized they are unwilling to accept responsibility for teachers, the possible financing cost, of sponsorship. Sometimes they do sponsor and use this as a way of paying very low rates to teachers. At others, the very fact that teachers are not sponsored is held over them as a threat, “as an illegal teacher you’d better accept the low rates of pay or might find yourself in trouble with the authorities.”
Fourthly, who makes the bulk of the money from English etc language teaching – foreigners or Koreans? I suggest language school operators, businessmen rather than those with knowledge of or interest in education, plus publishers of textbooks, producers of cassette and video tapes make most of the money.
Fifthly, if competent teachers aren’t attracted by the “paradise” which Korea is said to be, this is surprising. It is unsurprising that Korean businessmen see in this an opportunity to make money from employing less competent people, illegally, at low rates of pay.
Sixthly, the economic case most easily made against illegally teaching people is that they don’t pay tax on their earnings. Surely this is easily remedied by Korean employers deducting tax at source, from teachers’ pay. Above-board schools do this now, those who don’t sponsor their teachers have every reason to NOT draw attention to themselves by paying tax due from the illegally-employed teachers.
I really think Mr.Kim is barking up the wrong tree. He would be better employed barking up the tree marked “Koreans” than in barking up that marked “foreigners.” Many of the latter – and one sees them from time to time in places foreigners frequent – seem typical young folk enjoying a “working holiday.” They’re not taking jobs away from Koreans, few of them ever report earnings of the level mentioned by Mr. Kim.
Earlier this year Koreans in the U.S. were described as “Mortimer Snerds” which upset many here and there. It seemed unfair as well as unrealistic to stigmatize ANY race in this way. Yet foreigners in any country are an easy target. Dwelling on preconceived ideas about them is no way to achieve Mr. Kim’s declared aim (hope) of “concerted efforts by Koreans and foreigners for mutual benefit on a reciprocal basis.”
The "ABCs" (American-born Chinese) tend to be contemptuous of the "FOBs" ("fresh off the boat"). L.A. Filipinos have their own snickering Tagalog-language acronym—"TNTs"—for their new and often illegal arrivals. Nisei, or U.S.-born Japanese, are embarrassed by Japanese nationals who speak no English; newly arrived Japanese, in turn, are wary of L.A.'s native sansei (third generation) and yonsei (fourth). But all the Japanese seem to agree that they are superior to other Asians. And everybody picks on the Koreans. Says U.C.L.A. Sociologist Harry Kitona: "They regard the Koreans as the Mortimer Snerds of America. They cannot learn the language, their food smells and they cannot express themselves." In a city with half a dozen major "Oriental" communities, national distinctions seem magnified, perhaps because these uneasy ethnic cousins have been thrown together as never before.As described here, Mortimer Snerd was the secondary dummy of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, created in 1938:
The character was an amiable hick, with a slow drawl reminiscent of the Disney character Goofy, and a streak of innocence and unique logic [...] The dummy reflected this, with buck-teeth, elongated nose, and more mundane "rube in the city" costuming.If you follow the first link, the puppet looks like he might be a vagabond.
South Korean immigrants also tend to be middle class, or working slavishly to get there. Their numbers have gone up 16-fold since 1970, with virtually all of the newcomers settling in a 2-sq.-mi. swath along jumbled Olympic Boulevard. They seem eager to become full-fledged American bourgeois, holding golf tournaments and staging beauty contests. According to L.A. Demographer Eui-Young Eu of California State University, 40% of the area's documented Koreans own their homes. Most are fervent Protestants. Koreatown has some 400 churches. Ironically, younger Koreans are more likely to commit crimes than any other Asian nationality.That last sentence is rather interesting. The article got several responses, such as the two below:
As an American citizen, but first and last a Korean, I felt your article gave an extremely negative view of the Korean people. You quote a sociologist as saying that the Japanese regard Koreans as "Mortimer Snerds." Well, these assumed "superior Asians" have much to learn before making ignorant, prejudicial generalizations about Koreans.On the bright side, at least there weren't articles with titles like "In America, there are a lot of Korean criminals," or with lines like "deviant and criminal acts by Korean immigrants have become common."
Ho Joung Ha Lafayette Hill, Pa.The Korean American Coalition feels that your article accentuated the negative aspects of immigration while ignoring numerous positive contributions made by recent immigrants. Koreans have already improved Los Angeles by transforming a previously deteriorating neighborhood into a vibrant area called Koreatown. Most of the Korean immigrants are highly educated and skilled and are ready and willing to make contributions to this country. In fact, more than 60% of the Koreans who came here in the past ten years have at least four years of college.
Tong Soo Chung President, Korean American Coalition Los Angeles
English, French, German
Foreigners Enjoy Better Life With Mother Tongues
By Kim Chang-young
Once there was a time when Koreans associated gratitude with foreigners here apart from what and who they were.
Whether a sense of indebtedness to foreign nations for their assistance during the Korean War is still rooted or not, the country now appears to be a “paradise” to a great many foreigners.
The foreigners endowed with nothing more than speaking their own language are enjoying a good life here by making the most of their mother tongues.
In a newly industrializing country in the Orient like Korea, foreigners have a merit even on the simple ground that they can speak their mother languages such as English, French, German, or other languages.
They get more popularity even among young people in a unique situation as they are in a country which was brought under U.S. military administration for three years after liberation from Japan and was later helped by combined U.N. forces during the Korean War (1950-53).
A 37-year-old American was recently arrested in Seoul by police for having allegedly purchased jewels and other accessories worth more than four million won with five credit cards he found last May.
John F. Hadkym used the credit cards including a Diner’s Club card, all of which belong to a U.S. woman, on various occasions at department stores, but, according to him, no saleswomen suspected him.
He revealed that Korean women in military campsides had provided him with lodging and even money when in need so he did not experience difficulty though he had not much money with him. “They were moved impressively by my petty presents in mornings,” he said.
Featuring more clearly than this were some cases carried on the Aug. 13 issue of Le Monde that Korea was depicted as having some of bonanzas any westerner can exploit easily, given the ability of just speaking.
Luc came to Korea in 1981, holding a worn suitcase, on advice of a Frenchman he happened to meet while vagabonding in the Philippines.
Seoul was a utopia where the vagrant could earn money enough to buy an apartment in just a few months by teaching French and occasionally English.
Free from financial difficulties now, he makes two overseas trips in a year – one to Southeast Asian countries and the other to Paris to meet his relatives.
Michael, 28, and his friend, Pierre, are two others who found Korea a good jobsite. In the country where they dropped in without special purposes, they have made lectures at a university and a broadcasting company, respectively, and received some 900,000 won in monthly pay.
They are a few of thousands of foreigners who are utilizing the “Korean phenomenon.”
Roughly 100 foreigners are reportedly working with foreign language institutes as lecturers, and approximately 200 with government offices and business firms as consultants, engineers, or copy readers. The remaining 1,700-odd foreigners are presumed to earn a living by lecturing in English for families or students in groups privately.
However the problem is that most have engaged in business in violation of pertinent laws, for no more than 338 of about 150,000 dwelling here for over 3 months have obtained employment visas, according to immigration officers.
A few foreigners have filed application forms for the change of visa status for employment these days, disclose the officers in Seoul.
Koh In-Kyong, president of a language institute in downtown capital, says some three or four foreigners come to his office daily to seek employment as lecturers. “One time early this year we put an ad in an English newspaper but we had difficulty to select even two competent persons among the large number of applicants.”
Marking controversy is the rapid growth in offenses committed by foreigners since 1980.
The number of foreign people indicted on a variety of offenses doubled to 283 last year against 149 (140?) in the previous year and 144 in 1981, according to Supreme Court statistics.
The 1983 number broke down to 72 from the United States and Japan each, 54 from Taiwan, 35 from Hong Kong and 90 from other countries.
Among them, the statistical yearbook shows, 94 violated the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 90 committed contraband and 12 employed violence.
It is hoped that both Koreans and foreigners in this society exert concerted efforts for mutual benefits on a reciprocal basis.
"Vehemently oppose the signing of a 
A rapist boarding hagwon owner who told students their marks would go up if they had sex with him.It goes on to say that overlooking a sex crime committed by a potential employee and hiring them anyway will get a fine of up to 3 million won, while refusing an education office's demand to dismiss someone with a sex crime in their past will get a fine of up to 10 million won. A hagwon which continuously fails to follow a dismissal order could have its registration canceled.
A native speaking English instructor who molested an elementary school student.
In recent years, sex crimes occurring again and again at hagwons have caused parents a great deal of worry. [...]
In the future, regulations for hiring instructors for hagwons in the Seoul area will be greatly strengthened.
When hiring an employee, hagwon owners must without fail confirm with local police that the person has no record of sex crimes. Those who violate this face a fine up to 5 million won.
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.Other more recent cases took place in schools, private lessons, or a district office-run foreign language program (the latter had charges dropped).
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 allegedly 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.
Hasegawa, who has been influenced by German bands Neu! and Can as well as American band Television, said, "During the golden age of rock in the 1960s and 1970s, Korea made world class rock music... For political reasons [Koreans] didn't get to hear a lot of music [being made at that time] which actually stimulated their imaginations."I have to wonder if that's the only time Neu! or Can (or any Krautrock band besides Kraftwerk) have been mentioned in a newspaper article in Korean. There's a link to Shin Jung-hyun and the Men's 22 minute version of 거짓말이야 (Lies) here, which is amazing, though there are parts similar enough to Neu! and Can to make me wonder if Shin might have heard them (not impossible, especially considering the fact that U.S. forces served in both West Germany and Korea (and the wackiest pre-Krautrock band in Germany was the Monks, a band made up of former GIs)). On the other hand, it might just be a coincidence, the result of, as Hasegawa put it, imaginations stimulated by isolation.
"In Korea there seems to be a lack of respect for musicians. Especially during broadcasts, if musicians handle the sound equipment they're scolded with 'What do you know about it, why are you touching it?' It's something you can't imagine happening in Japan." He has really enjoyed Korean audiences, saying that "Koreans' passion seems similar to South Americans. They know how to enjoy the moment. When we play rock festivals people are already crowd surfing during our sound check."
Hasegawa plans to continue collecting Korean LPs. "You can buy Led Zeppelin or Rolling Stones albums anywhere. I think I'll continue to collect albums that cannot be found outside of Korea."
When you hear this album, you wonder what the use of applied music and composition theory is. This album really is punk. It seems it was made saying, "Whatever, just do it," and was made without lyrics or composition, like a sculpture or invention. In terms of musical personality/individuality, it's the world's best record.High praise. As much as I like that album, I prefer their second LP (1978), which runs the gamut from noise to folk to rock to psychedelia even while creating guitar sounds you'd expect from early Killing Joke - who wouldn't release their first album for another year.
According to statistics released by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (based on 2009 figures), it costs 260,000,000 won to raise a child (the cost of a compact apartment!), with ages 0-2 costing 24.6 million won, ages 3-6 costing 29.4 million won, elementary school years costing 63 million won, middle school years costing 35.3 million won, high school years costing 41.5 million won, and university costing 68.1 million won. Good to know that two children will set you back half a million dollars. According to the institute, 140 million won is spent on private education alone during a child's primary and secondary school years.
Harsh criticism of HIV testing for foreign instructors in Time Magazine.The Time article it references is this one, titled "South Korea: Should Foreign Teachers Be Tested for HIV?" Asia Gyeongje's translation is fair enough, though Andrea Vandom's quote is slightly different from the original:
Leads to discrimination, ineffective...Petitions to the NHRCK and the constitutional court are underway.
The American current affairs weekly Time harshly criticized mandatory HIV/AIDS testing for foreign instructors in Korea in an online article on the 24th.
The magazine said that in recent years xenophobia has grown serious in Korea, in particular towards foreign English instructors in a return to the days of King Gojong at the end of the Joseon dynasty.
The article looked at Lee Eun-ung, spokesperson of Anti-English Spectrum (currently the Citizen's group for upright English education), in particular, introducing in detail his negative bias towards Itaewon culture and foreigners through quotations, and after this took into consideration USFK's instigation of the sex industry in Korea, noting however that they are not the only consumers of prostitution.
It also argues that anti-foreign feeling is very serious in Korea, citing examples such as how the Korean women who appeared in photos of a foreign teacher party in Hongdae in 2005 were criticized and called 'yanggongju.'
Such feeling crystallized into policy and since 2007 a mandatory HIV testing system for foreign English instructors has been enforced.
The opportunity to establish this system came as Canadian English teacher Christopher Paul Neil, who had passed through Korea, was arrested for molestation crimes against children in places like Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Parents of schoolchildren became more worried about the qualifications of native speaking English teachers and authorities made criminal background checks together with HIV checks mandatory for English teachers.
However foreign instructors and human rights groups are in opposition to this system.
It's not just a matter of discrimination against foreigners, it spreads the false prejudice that AIDS is only a 'foreign problem' and as a side effect gives rise to new stigmatization against AIDS patients.
Former English teacher Andrea Vandom said, "Simply because I am not Korean I was pinpointed as a spreader of sexually transmitted diseases," and filed an appeal to the constitutional court.
Benjamin Wagner, a professor at Kyunghee University School of Law, argued that, "You simply cannot discriminate on the basis of race." Wagner and the Association of Teachers of English in Korea each filed petitions with the NHRCK demanding the abolition of the system.
In November UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged that the the system be abolished.
Previously the same month, the HIV test for people applying to enter the country on migrant worker or entertainment visas was abolished.
However, considering the ignorance of authorities, the magazine asserted that the HIV testing system for English teachers will not abolished any time soon, and will require effort to do so.
"Given how long I was in the country already, it was illogical to require me to submit these documents. And I was being pinpointed as disease carrier simply because I am not of Korean blood. Suddenly they saw me as morally suspect and a threat to the community because I was a foreigner."The Time article inserts her quote after a very incorrect statement:
Three years later, the law persists, though ethnic Koreans are exempted, regardless of where they are born or raised. Says Andrea Vandom, a former teacher who is petitioning a constitutional court over the tests: "I was being pinpointed a s disease carrier simply because I am not of Korean blood."It's clear from the original that Vandom was not referring to ethnic Koreans from other countries, who are most certainly not "exempted, regardless of where they are born or raised." Not every ethnic Korean can get an F-4 visa, and those who do have them still must get tested for public school jobs.
King Gojong, Korea's last monarch, didn't think much of foreigners. "Uneducated louts," he called them, driven by "lechery and sensuality." But that was 1882, when American missionaries were knocking at his country's door, and Gojong could do little to stop their evangelical advance. The kingdom, he realized, would have to cope with the outsiders. Learn from them, he told his people, but beware their lustful ways.Actually, the full quotation from King Gojong's 1882 decree, in which he tried to assuage the fears of those who feared Korea would be tainted by foreign religions (from this essay, which I previously quoted from here):
“But as regards entering into treaty relations, of course we shall enter into them, and as regards prohibiting the foreign religion, of course we can prohibit it, and in establishing treaties of amity and commerce, we shall do so in accordance with the principles of international law. According to the rules of propriety, it cannot be permitted that religion shall be promulgated in the interior; besides, how can you . . . suddenly abandon the true and embrace the false and bad? Supposing, for instance, there were to be some stupid fellow, some uneducated lout, secretly attempting to diffuse his teachings [in our country]; then we have the law of our state, by which all such shall be exterminated and destroyed without mercy; what reason, then is there for sorrow on account of our (alleged) inability to deal with such abuses? Moreover, when [these malcontents] see even so little adoption of foreign methods in the direction of mechanism and machinery, they immediately regard that as contamination with foreign heresies. This, indeed, is the ne plus ultra of obtuseness! If the [foreign] doctrine is to be regarded as a doctrine of lechery and sensuality, then it can be kept at a distance; if foreign mechanism is advantageous, then we can reap advantage from it and use it to increase our wealth. . . . Let us repel their doctrines, but learn to use or imitate their machinery; both these courses of policy can be carried out, and thus no outrage will be done to propriety.”Ben Wagner (who found this quote in the first place) helpfully supplies the original Korean version here. Both sentences quoted from in the article are conditional: "Supposing, for instance, there were to be some stupid fellow, some uneducated lout..." and "If the [foreign] doctrine is to be regarded as a doctrine of lechery and sensuality…" The Time article unfairly reduces this to "King Gojong, Korea's last monarch, didn’t think much of foreigners. "Uneducated louts," he called them, driven by "lechery and sensuality."
This summer, a Korean newspaper, the New Daily, ran an exposé on Itaewon, a Seoul nightclub district popular with teachers and tourists. The headline called the area a "loser's paradise" where Korean women are "ruined." "Among foreigners in Itaewon clubs, you'll see that there are almost no decent ones," said the story's lone source, Lee Eun-ung, a prominent anti-teacher campaigner.That sounds familiar. Unfortunately, the writer didn't read the update a few days later noting that the 'Lee' in the article wasn't Lee Eun-ung after all. So, so far we have two quotes taken out of context, an incorrect statement about ethnic Koreans being exempt from tests and Lee Eun-ung being responsible for the above statements (seeing as it's been translated for a week now, I'm surprised there's no comment about it at AES).
Though he was never linked to sex crimes in Korea and was not known to carry HIV, his arrest sparked panic among Korean parents, who, understandably, worried about screening criteria for teachers.Let's clarify that:
Though he was never linked to sex crimes in Korea and was not known to carry HIV, [media reports about] his arrest [which talked about the "endless problems with foreign teachers'] sparked panic among Korean parents, who, understandably, worried about screening criteria for teachers.At any rate, while it's nice to see attention brought to the issue by a major American weekly, and nice to know that my work is being read (if not credited), it's hard to get excited when Time gets things just as wrong and is just as sensationalist as the Korean media coverage I regularly decry here.
His song request is underlined below:
