nanoomi

Leave the car at home on the 11th.

Shakespeare once said that brevity is the Seoul soul of wit. In modern times, nowhere is this more apparent than with Twitter. It is amazing how, with just 140 characters, biting satire and political commentary can now wing its way around the world faster than you can say interfering paternal state propaganda.

The G20 summit is in Seoul next week and in preparation the city and central governments have been preparing Seoulites for the inevitable delays and inconveniences, which is pretty swell as governments go.

But along with warnings about traffic have come some interesting and, some might say, insecure messages along with some totally nonsensical ones.

Reminding that Seoul will have the eyes of the world on it next week, the city’s denizens have been asked to NOT throw away unsightly (and malodorous) food waste, NOT to drive – as noted above, and NOT be afraid to speak to foreigners.

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Foreigner Joy asked the intriguing question, “Is Seoul Ready for the G20 Summit”? over on her blog.  Have you heard that the G20 is coming to Korea?  Well, it is.

Living downtown, I’m starting to see flags, placards and signs all over the place that the G20 is coming.  Seems some of the higher-ups, or at least the people who hang flags on light posts, are pretty excited about this.

Joy looks at the cleanliness and safety of some parts of the city, and the efficiency of the transportation system, then she references The Metropolitician’s post about Koreans who are being trained by their own media to suspect, and maybe hate, foreigners, and concludes that because of the provincial, nationalist mentality of people in Korea, the country’s not truly ready to host the G20 Summit yet.

Along that vein, Chris in South Korea chimes in, agreeing that while the hardware is there – infrastructure, facilities, etc., Korean people’s mindset is not really global, and that Koreans will treat foreigners as if invisible, until it is revealed that they are associated with the G20 summit, at which point the special treatment will come out: he cites incidents where Koreans were more ready to apologize when their bad service led to upset people, than just to give good service in the first place.
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I was asked yesterday in the comments here by Daeguowl if the ‘Itaewon is a paradise for losers’ article had been amended, and a quick check revealed it had. It originally read:

The founder of the “citizen’s group”, Mr. Lee (40) is an English teacher who received a TESOL certificate/diploma in Canada. During a two day interview he explained in detail the truth about Itaewon. Contacting him after a long time, I asked him what the situation was like in Itaewon, and he answered, “Still the same.”

It now reads:

Jasminhyang,” who was active in the “citizen’s group” in the past under that ID, is an English teacher who received a TESOL certificate/diploma in Canada. During a two day interview he explained in detail the truth about Itaewon. He said he left the group in 2007. Contacting him after a long time, I asked him what the situation was like in Itaewon, and he answered, “Still the same.”

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Huh. Five years. Who’da thunk it? We’ll see what the next five years holds. And the first post was about the island that shall not be named and territorial claims to it appearing in the Buddha’s Birthday parade. Fun times. As Nathan at Korea Beat wrote awhile ago,

I remember back in 2005 suddenly having my afternoon lessons cancelled so that students could be “educated” about Dokdo, which really meant listening to some speeches and then memorizing a Dokdo song.

As he notes, that was in middle school, but learning the Dokdo song was something that took place in elementary schools as well. I remember hearing it preceded by, “미국 똥! 외국 똥! 캐나다 똥!” Yup, good times. Ah, let’s forget about it and look at these cute stickers!

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In mid-April, five articles appeared drug arrests in Daegu (such as this one), where four native teachers and a Korean bar employee were booked without detention for smoking pot. The teachers were from the U.S., England, and Australia. The teachers smoked in a bar in Dongsung-ro in Daegu’s Jung-gu on several occasions. The police were then also inquiring into the whereabouts of another foreign teacher and the son of a high-ranking US army officer.

The article ended with the typical assurance that the investigation would be expanded, and it turns out there is now an update to this story, as the Maeil Gyeongje reveals in a report titled “Prosecutors: Smuggling Drugs in Rectum, a Pile of Foreigners Arrested.”

A pile of foreign English teachers and children of US military officers have been caught smoking and selling marijuana and hash in Daegu, including 26 year old teacher Mr. B. Four were arrested, and 10 were booked without detention. The teachers got the hash in Hong Kong and hid it up their asses in a ‘bizarre (엽기적인)’ method of smuggling. As always, the police believe more foreigners are involved and will expand the investigation.

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Matt from Popular Gusts discusses the Korean film “A Little Pond” here.

Matt discusses the similarities in pop culture portrayals of colonial Japanese and Americans.

[Trans.] “Exactly the Same Guys!”

(Brutality, pillaging, wickedness)

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I just posted this at the bottom of yesterday’s “Sickening Face” post, but decided to make it a separate post as well.

We’ve seen the portrayal of the “shiftless vagabond from France who teaches language and lives well in Korea” evolve in the Aug. 21 Dong-A Ilbo article “Jibberish” and in “Sickening Face.” As “Jibberish” told us, “There was one penniless “French” young man. He was from ‘Lyon’. There he was a restaurant delivery boy.” Note that the Le Monde article makes no mention of Lyon or restaurant delivery boys – these were made up by the Dong-A Ilbo. That article also mentions that this “French” young man came to Korea with only a “shabby suitcase” and that he “married a respectable Korean woman,” which combines the stories of Luc and Pierre as told in Le Monde.

Now, in “Sickening Face,” we’re told of “A Parisian dishwasher living in Lyon [who] ended up flying to Korea.” Lyon appears again, but this time the “French” young man is a dishwasher instead of a restaurant delivery boy. The intent is the same — to portray him as lowly as possible so that he is seen as being unworthy of marriage to a “maiden from a distinguished rich family.” It also relies on the “Korea treats these foreigners too well” theme, as well as the “lucky foreign bastard” theme in portraying him as having a leg up because of his “exotic outward charm” and his mother tongue and also describing this marriage as having “made him a rich man overnight” — a theme seen in these well-known anti-English teacher comics (click on the first result).

It also mentions that “Other Parisian dishwashers, shoe shiners, and car washers are calling en masse the Korean embassy in France,” an obvious reference to this JoongAng Ilbo article. The only problem is that the examples given in that article were of people who were all qualified to teach. At any rate, the reader should fear that more nice, rich girls are going to marry the “French wave” of dishwashers, shoe shiners and car washers about to wash over the peninsula.

As for how the writer feels about this, one need only look at the way the article moves from the story of the marriage between a foreign dishwasher to an adulterous couple, to “sickening” examples of hermaphrodites, fish species where the males parasitize females, “sexually reproducing, impudent vertebrates,” talk of anuses in strange places and wicked servants.

It’s interesting, however, that the last example he mentions is of “ask[ing] questions of sheep in wolf’s clothing.” Since they are sheep, they aren’t as dangerous as they’re made out to be, and can be dealt with, something a JoongAng Ilbo editorial had called for the day before “Sickening Face” was published, and the next translation to be posted in this series.

http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2010/04/commentary-on-sickening-face.html

This editorial, which appeared in the Daejeon Ilbo on March 25, comments on the “never-ending” crimes of foreign English teachers:

“The country where murderers and drug criminals teach English”

In Korea the illegal and law-evading activities of foreign language teachers is never-ending. Some thoughtless teachers get into trouble because of their illegal and law-evading activities, and now gang activity and murder have shockingly been uncovered. It’s incredible that such a brutal criminal and drug addict could play such a role and teach English to young students.

A Korean-American teacher who was exposed and arrested a few days ago was wanted by Interpol for murder. In 2006 he killed a Korean-American in the U.S. and fled to Korea where he habitually did drugs and taught children. Another Korean-American named Lee who worked as a teacher at a famous hagwon in Gangnam was arrested in a similar case. An LA gang member, who was deported for attempted murder, came to Korea and worked as an English teacher and was arrested for smuggling, dealing and taking drugs. In 2008 a teacher on the FBI’s most-wanted list for murder was arrested, and 13 English teachers were arrested for gambling and habitually doing drugs. There are also foreign teachers who get into trouble because of their disorderly private lives or molestation.

It’s not easy to keep problematic “low-quality teachers” like these out . Under current law, for hagwons that employ foreign teachers, the owner must report the teacher’s personal data to the education office within one week. For people from English-speaking countries to receive a conversation-teaching visa (E-2), they must submit a criminal record and infectious disease certificates and their addresses in Korea. However, for foreign teachers who have come to Korea, fake diplomas or documents are difficult to verify. Moreover, there is no system to filter out undeclared instructors and instructors from non-English speaking countries.

At the end of July last year there were 21,498 E-2 visa holders in Korea. If we include those illegal teachers who came to Korea on tourist visas there are 50,000 foreign teachers. At Seoul public schools, among native-speaking English teachers 16.2% are licensed teachers, and only 38.8% have TESOL or TEFL certificates. Teachers at private hagwons fall far beyond this level.

In the era of globalization, the need for foreign language education is an undeniable reality. As long as foreign language education is unavoidable the entire system should be improved. We must find a way to raise quality standards and block law-breaking foreigners at the source. At this time, we also wish that we could confidently check the conditions of private foreign language hagwons in Daejeon and Chungcheongnam-do.

——

So, we’re told that “It’s not easy to keep problematic ‘low-quality teachers’ like these out,” which is then followed by unrelated information about registration of teachers and the E-2 system (incorrectly – infectious disease certificates and their addresses in Korea must be submitted to get an alien registration card, not the visa) and talk of fake diplomas and “undeclared instructors and instructors from non-English speaking countries” who cannot be “filtered out” (forgetting that there are over 1,000 non-English teaching E-2 visa holders). There is nothing about F-4 visas, however, which is the visa those caught in these most recent cases were on. As always, Korean-Americans are treated according to the “Korean-American + ‘good’ or ’successful’ = Korean, Korean American + ‘bad’ or ‘criminal’ = American/foreign” equation. The editorial betrays a total lack of knowledge about these visa issues, and seems like it was just a chance for the writer to crusade against the long-standing “foreign English teacher problem” and their “never-ending” crimes in order to “protect children.”

We’re also told that there are “50,000 foreign teachers” if illegal teachers on tourist visas are included (are there even that many of such illegal teachers these days?), which is 30,000 above the number of E-2 visa holders. It’s quite an exaggeration, and one meant to frighten (golly, are there really so many possible “brutal criminals and drug addicts” out there?).

Then we’re told that, “At Seoul public schools, among native-speaking English teachers 16.2% are licensed teachers, and only 38.8% have TESOL or TEFL certificates.” While it sounds similar to comments in this article attributed to Song Kwang-yong, the president of Seoul National University of Education (“Currently, only 20.5 percent of native English-speaking teachers (at schools) have teaching licenses (according to data from the Education Ministry, November 2008)”), what’s interesting is that neither a Google or Naver search turned up any other article referring to those stats except this one.

The article lists examples of “never-ending” crimes by foreign English teachers (“끊이지 않고 있다” is not an uncommon way to describe them – see here).

Not to excuse the crimes that are committed, but something that should be pointed out is that a few groups could scrutinize the way foreign English teachers are depicted by the Korean media and come away looking good.

http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2010/04/country-where-murderers-and-drug.html

Part 1: Le Monde and what came before
Part 2: Korea is “Ali Baba’s” Cave
Part 3: Seoul Should not be a Workplace for Parisians
Part 4: In private foreign language classes, there are a lot of ‘fraud teachers’
Part 6: ‘I Want to Strike it Rich in Seoul Too’ – Continuous Job Inquiries by the French

Part 5 “Gibberish”

On August 21, 1984, an irregular column in the Donga Ilbo titled 횡설수설 (“gibberish,” or “nonsense”) provided its own commentary on the subject of unqualified foreign language teachers. Many thanks to Ben Wagner and Kim So-eun for help with the translation:

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