"More Elite US Grads Teaching English in Korea"? Well, no, probably not.

Catching up on what I missed in January I was reminded of this article from the Dong-A Ilbo on the 21st, talking about how more graduates from elite U.S. universities are applying to teach English in Korea. It gives a few examples of applicants from Harvard, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, and the University of North Carolina who decided to teach in Korea after graduating college. The source for this story is "a consul in charge of processing entry visas at the Korean Embassy in Washington," a person who interviews applicants personally if they're working in Korea for the first time. Interviews that likely go something like this:



That's not me being mean for the sake of being mean, that's approximating everything I've read and heard about these mandatory embassy interviews. About the same duration, too; you'd just need to add about eight hours' travel time each way and hundreds of dollars of expenses to replicate the full experience.

What caught my eye in the article was this paragraph:

In the past, many Americans who applied for Korean teaching visas were graduates of community colleges. The consul said, “Until early 2008, graduates of two-year colleges that were unheard of in Korea accounted for the lion’s share of wannabe English teachers.”

That's strange to hear because at least since 2003---as far back as Dave's ESL Cafe threads go---four-year degrees have been required for the E-2 visa. Either the consul is talking out his or her ass, or is suggesting that up until 2008 the majority of appplicants were graduates from community colleges, even though they knew, and their recruiters probably reminded them, they couldn't get teaching visas.

The article finishes:

Few graduates of elite American schools expressed interest in teaching in Korea back then, given the hardly attractive salary of two million won (1,800 U.S. dollars) per month.

The situation has significantly changed since then. The consul, who conducts interviews for teaching visas Tuesdays, said one in four or five applicants is a graduate of an elite school.

The tough job market for college graduates in the U.S. is apparently a major factor for prompting them to seek work in Korea.

It's true that South Korea has the potential to attract and retain experienced teachers because of a tough job market back home, though remember that Korea's reputation for a shady place to work and teach precedes itself. Furthermore, Korea was actually far more lucrative a few years ago when the exchange rate, at least for Americans, was more favorable. I earned 2.1 million won a month at my first hagwon in 2005-2006, but that was about US$400 more a month than it is now, and nearly US$800 a month more than last year during the won's weakest. Salaries have remained stagnant for most of the decade, and if you look at the "salary and benefits" section of the website for English Program in Korea [EPIK]---a program that places teachers in public schools---you'll see that teachers with degrees in education can expect to earn 2.1 million won per month in Busan or Incheon, or up to 2.3 million won in the "provinces," only a slight improvement from 2004. Money isn't everything, true, and teachers don't get into the business to become rich, but as I wrote in the Korea Herald in June, Korea clearly isn't prepared to pay for quality or experience. Two million won, to give the figure in the article, isn't unreasonable for an inexperienced teacher fresh out of college, but it is insulting for people who possess the quote-unquote qualifications Korea professes to be after, and in a country where its teachers are among the highest-paid in the world, isn't nearly enough to get adults to leave their homes to work as "native speaker assistant teachers" and get dicked around by bad recruiters or by schools that don't know what to do with them.

Let's look at another paragraph:

The consul said, “The educational qualifications of college graduates who apply for visas to teach English in Korea have significantly improved.”

Talking about "educational qualifications" is futile in Korea---administrators can't decide what "qualified" means, schools don't know how to recognize quality in English teachers, schools aren't willing to pay for it, and schools continue to simply hire warm bodies with the right skin color---but if you look at the seven names the article included, none of them has a degree in education, none of them mentioned have any training in teaching English as a foreign language, and none---save for perhaps the English major---have anything that might pass for "educational qualifications" beyond a big-name university. The article mentions people with degrees in: human ecology, political science, economics, humanities, ancient literature, and English, and a person with a minor in international relations. Chasing applicants with degrees from name-brand schools---or at least from the schools Koreans have heard of---does nothing to improve the "qualifications" of native speaker English teachers, and is no different than the "image is everything" approach we already have.

To get a fair picture of this trend, if it really exists, you really have to look at the ethnic backgrounds of new teachers, something not mentioned in the article. Korean-Americans, or Koreans who have attended big-name schools, have always made a killing in test-prep hagwons here and from private lessons, but in some cases have a harder time finding work because schools won't hire them and parents don't want their children listening to English from an Asian face. You'll notice that none of the people mentioned by first name in the article will be heading to public schools. Besides, we know that a lot of public schools won't even hire Asian-Americans, and that hagwon, too, discriminate against anybody not young, female, and white.

The article runs with the idea that more elite US graduates are teaching English in Korea, but provides no statistics for the present or the past, thus giving no way to measure "more" other than the observations of an unnamed source at the Korean consul (who probably shouldn't be sharing that information anyway). Likewise, there is no measure of "elite" given, or why somebody from, say, the University of Pennsylvania would be a better hire than somebody like me out of Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Let's not take the word of "a consul in charge of processing entry visas at the Korean Embassy in Washington" when that word isn't backed up with any figures or analysis.

3.0-magnitude earthquake in Gyeonggi-do Tuesday at 6:08 pm.

Around 6:15 on a bus heading out of Seoul today, a display flashed across the bottom of the TV screen saying that a 3.0 magnitude earthquake was detected north of Seoul today at 6:08 pm. KBS Global has the only coverage thus far in English:

A three-point-zero magnitude earthquake jolted parts of Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday evening.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said the quake occurred at 6:08 p.m. with the epicenter eight kilometers north of Siheung.

It's not uncommon for South Korea to experience small earthquakes, and browsing the Earthquake Information page from the KMA---from whence the map below comes---you can get maps for others over the past few years.

Gwangju's got a Vietnamese restaurant.

Not sure when this opened, since nobody from my Brian in Jeollanam-do Sangmu bureau tells me anything, but it's a new addition since the last time I was in the area. A Hoa Binh (호아빈) restaurant is now in Chipyeong-dong, behind Columbus Cinema near the E-Mart in Gwangju's Sangmu area. You'll find a map here via Naver, and one on the Hoa Binh website. It's accessible via buses 지원45 지원50, and if you're going by subway you can head out exit 3 of Uncheon Station (운천역), make that right, and walk along the park until you come to, and go behind, the movie theater.

You people laugh at my enthusiasm, because Hoa Binh is hardly anything special for you Seoul or Gyeonggi folks, but Jeollanam-do has always been deprived of foreign food. This is the first Vietnamese restaurant in town since the little one near Chonnam National University closed sometime last year, and the first chain in Jeollanam-do since the Hoa Binh in Suncheon closed in April 2007. Over the past year, though, there have been some improvements. In downtown Gwangju there's now Thali, Al-Arab, and the popular First Nepal, and there's a Thai restaurant called "Thai Food" near Songjeongni Station (walk along the renovated street across from the station, and turn down the alley at the store 화이트존).

A Kraze Burger opened last year in Sangmu as well, and it serves a pretty good burger.


The K.O. Burger, from November.

Lee Min-ho's lookin' good for Etude House.

Top ten for '09, a month late.

In case you missed it, I was in the Korea Herald on January 5th with a list of ten stories I felt were among the biggest to my readers. I think I've qualified that enough. Like I said in the third paragraph:

The following is a list of the stories I consider most relevant to, and among, my readers, many of whom happen to be English speakers and English teachers. I don't write "relevant to foreigners" or "among expatriates" because though we might all be called the same word in Korean, we're a diverse group of people.

And I'm aware that there's a ton of people who don't read the papers, don't bother with blogs, and have never heard of Dave's ESL Cafe. Anyway, here's the bottom three:

8. English-language radio comes to town
In February an English-language radio station started broadcasting in Busan, and in April one came to Gwangju. The stations are popular among Koreans looking to practice their English, but because few native English speakers are involved, and because few native English speakers in Korea listen to the radio, questions remain about how relevant they are to the foreign community.

9. Stephannie White sues over death of son
Stephannie White, mother of a 14-year-old boy who died under suspicious circumstances in a Gyeongsan sauna in 2008, sued the Korean government, the South Gyeongsan provincial government, the hospital, and the sauna in January. She lost, and her questions remain unanswered. Our question, whether a non-Korean can find justice in Korea, is unanswered, too.

10. Mandatory culture classes for foreign teachers
A politician announced in November that he'd make it mandatory for foreign English teachers to attend classes on Korean culture and education. Teachers who have experienced such programs, though -- and most in public schools have -- realize how dull and impractical they are. Foreign teachers want real opportunities for training, not lessons on kimchi and the Baekje kingdom, and I, at least, want real thought put into effectively using native speaker English teachers in the classroom.

Though I like what I have at number one, I think 2009 will be remembered for all the nasty stories on English teachers in the local press and for teachers hitting back. The category "We hate native speaker English teachers" has a good collection of the worst from 2008 and 2009. I also like what Roboseyo put as his number one on his list of top K-blog stories, and indeed, watching the Korea Times become what it's become---first with bad journalism, with nasty opinion pieces against native speaker English teachers, then with fake letters to the editor, then with more bad journalism, and finally with tabloid-style articles to attract Korean readers from Naver---has been very disappointing to the comparatively few people who look critically at the news they read.

And to preemptively answer the charges that my list is too negative, I admit that yes, the list is negative. News is usually bad news, and I'll bet the large number of expats who don't read the papers or follow online discussions probably didn't even hear about any stories except #4, encouraging people to believe I simply fabricate news via my negativity. But even though I sometimes envy people who keep themselves detached, I can't see any way around writing a list of ten stories most relevant to expats without acknowledging some of what I've included there.

South Korea has world's fastest internet, US 18th, says "State of the Internet Report."

From the U.S. News & World Report, passing along results from the Akimai's "State of the Internet Report" for the third quarter of 2009:

What do South Koreans, Romanians, and the Swiss all have in common? On average, they enjoy faster Internet connection speeds than Americans, according to the quarterly "State of the Internet Report" issued by Akamai, a technology company in Cambridge, Mass., that sells fast data delivery to businesses and other enterprises that put content online. The company looked through its data for an average connection speed throughout the United States and found it to be 3.9 megabits per second, the 18th highest among all countries—meaning that it is well behind first place South Korea, with 14.6 megabits per second. Not only does South Korea have a high average connection speed, it also has a high number of very fast connections: Seventy-four percent of the country's connections are more than 5 megabits per second, a speed that Akamai calls "high broadband." Only 24 percent of U.S. connections qualify as high broadband.

News of this report came out in January, and Extra! Korea beat me to it by about three weeks. The KBS World article notes that Japan came in second, and Hong Kong, Romania, and Sweden round out the top five.

In August we read that the United States is 15 years behind South Korea's internet speed, and I noted that while both Incheon and Narita airports offer free internet access in certain public stations in the airside terminals, at Chicago's O'Hare they were charging five dollars for the first fifteen minutes, $0.33 for each additional minute.

Korean teachers going to the US for further training.

A few articles found via the twitter account of The Jeonju Hub on Korean elementary school English teachers visiting schools in the United States as part of their training. The first article is from January 26th and is about a group of teachers who visited San Bernardino, California, after completing five months of training in Korea.

The 16 instructors, who teach in the Seoul area, spent Tuesday morning at Cal State San Bernardino where they were welcomed by campus educators. The South Korean teachers are scheduled to follow Tuesday morning's activities by visiting San Bernardino area elementary schools and studying how local teachers teach English to students who are learning the language.

"We hope that after these four weeks, you will come out as better teachers," said Tatiana Karmanova, interim dean of Cal State San Bernardino's College of Extended Learning. "You will have better class management, better language skills, (be) more fluent."

One of the visiting teachers, Jee Yeon, said learning English is compulsory in South Korean schools. Yeon said she and her compatriots were lucky to have an opportunity to visit the United States to hone their language skills.

"We have a duty and they (our students) are waiting," she said.

The government pays for teachers to undergo these lengthy training programs if they wish, which consist of five months at the Korean National University of Education and usually one month abroad.

The next article is from Thursday, about nine middle school English teachers who visited New Jersey:

"They are not only so intelligent and professional of the highest quality, but they communicate with a beautiful grace," [Superintendent] Dr. Arilotta noted. The visitors attended classes for nine days and had four weeks of training from Jan. 6 through Feb. 2. They also joined the teaching faculties for staff development activities on the Jan. 18 when students had off for the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.

The guests have indicated that their expectations have been exceeded by the overwhelming welcome they have received: "The administrators and teachers have been incredible. They go out of their way to make us feel included and at home. And the children are so respectful. These are clearly the best schools. The students work intensely with the teachers all day long. Everybody is blessed to have such superior schools and teachers. We are learning so many methods to bring back to Korea where we will mentor other teachers to improve how we teach English to Korean children."

The teachers underwent a "rigorous selection process," according to the director of the placement agency, who said:

"They needed to have at least seven years teaching experience, over 800 hours of staff development training and to pass a classroom teaching performance in front of a panel of judges."

The article concludes by mentioning these teachers were awarded "Teaching English in English - Masters" degrees by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (I've written about those here and here). There are two TEE certificates---"Ace" and "Master"---with a prerequisite of the latter being at least seven years' teaching experience.

I've been wanting to do a post on teacher training programs for a while, and am still collecting opinions to flesh it out (feel free to email me yours at the address on the side of the site). Elementary school teachers could benefit from overseas experience because the curriculum doesn't focus on grammar or writing---well, it did when I saw really shitty homeroom teachers do it---and have accompanying CD-ROMS that essentially do all the work for you, they can thus be taught entirely in English, even by teachers with a very limited command of the language.

On the other hand, observational and anecdotal evidence, together with what Korean English teachers have told me, indicates that these programs for secondary school teachers are probably not the best investment. In spite of these TEE certificates and the experience abroad---which, remember, supplements a lifetime of exposure to the language, decades of study, and four years of training in university---they are still placed back into schools that teach English entirely for standardized grammar tests which make spoken English a sideshow at best and a hindrance to comprehending the subject at worst. Teachers who have attended month-long intensive English programs at the Jeollanam-do Educational Training Institute (전라남도교육연수원) in Damyang county told me they generally had fun and learned a lot, but can't apply any of these skills because:

1) Their students aren't interested in speaking English.
2) Their students' English levels aren't good enough to understand spoken English.
3) The activities they learned in Damyang can't be applied to large class sizes like those in public schools.
4) Teachers must follow and complete the textbooks and teach toward standardized tests, and don't have time to waste on speaking English.

And keep in mind that since in these programs all teachers "pass," regardless of performance, there is no accountability. Just like there's no accountability when native speaker English teachers [NSETs] aren't given the opportunity to evaluate their Korean co-teachers, meaning nobody except blog readers and Facebook friends know when teachers don't participate in lesson planning, don't participate in class, or don't show up at all.

I've posted those thoughts before, and I took those four items from a post in December about a a National Assemblyman complaining about how expensive NSETs are. Similar points were made a few days earlier, in a post about a Seoul National University of Education professor bitching about NSETs for, among other reasons, how much they cost. When looking at the costs of English education, and criticizing the relative costs of imports, they're going to need to look honestly at what goes on in the English classrooms here and whether their training programs are working toward that.

Yie Eun-woong t-shirts hit the market.

CaptPorridge.com has created the first batch of Yie Eun-woong t-shirts, with the picture of the Anti-English Spectrum leader who admits to "following" teachers around for months at a time. They go for US$11.



The photograph is taken from his write-up in the Los Angeles Times on January 31st (my post on it is here). Yie for some reason agreed to pose for a picture in Gangnam---or Glionna made it a condition for the article, who knows---and now the man whose online cafe boasts of things like stalking foreign English teachers, rummaging through their trash, and shaping anti-teacher legislation now has thousands of people on the look-out for him.

Everybody do the pelvis dance! Even kids can grind to Hyun-ah's single!

2009 gave us the "hip dance" and the "butt dance." Will 2010 be the year of the pelvis dance?



I have no idea what her dance is called, or if it has even been given a name yet, but I was surprised to see that video on in a restaurant at lunchtime the other day, and not just because she's kinda wearing Suh In-young's look from two-and-a-half years ago. It's "Change," a single from 17-year-old Hyun-ah (현아) from the group 4minute, who as James of The Grand Narrative wrote in a comment to an earlier post, is too young to see her own video on TV.

If the single becomes a hit, the crotch-pumping may very well be coming to a middle school festival near you. The dance academies have already started, and here's a group of elementary school aged doing it.

Korea Times series on illegal foreign English tutors.

About the only time I read the Korea Times anymore is when they write nice articles about me. But since I like to stay on top of what people are writing about English education and English teachers, and since the Times is one of the few English-language news outlets in Korea---it calls itself "An Influential English Daily in South Kroea," not a typo---I have to check in every now and again.

These days award-winning reporter Kang Shin-who is writing a series about illegal foreign English tutors. Part two, titled "Crackdown on Illegal Tutoring Ineffective," is typical of the biased reporting and bad journalism that earned him the nickname on this site "the worst journalist in Korea's English-language media." As you read the article, which I'll paste below, see how many cases of illegal foreign English teachers you find.

Many students take private English lessons for writing and speaking to prepare for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and TOEFL test for admission to U.S. universities. But many of those teaching are doing so illegally.

The education authorities have no immediate measures planned to crack down on illegal private tutoring by foreigners.

"It is hard to control tutoring due to privacy matters, especially when it comes to foreigners. Moreover, many of those who seek out such tutoring are well connected, leaving little room for authorities to uncover their illegal transactions," said Kim Chul-woon, director of the Private Institute Monitoring Team at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

Kim lamented, "We can't just barge into every house, without a warrant, where foreigners are suspected of giving lessons."

About 1,720 suspected illegal tutoring cases have been reported to the authorities. Only 368 cases were subject to punishment, all of which involved Korean tutors.

No foreign tutors have been caught by the authorities for violation of the Private Education Law, the ministry said.

More than 15,000 tutors have registered their activities to the appropriate education office since the government introduced programs to reward informants on illegal tutoring last July.

In Seoul alone, 11,967 cases of private tutoring have been registered with education offices in the city. Among them, 76 have been made by foreigners holding F-series visas such as the F-2 (spouses of Koreans), F-4 (ethnic Koreans) and F-5 (permanent residence). Most of them are teaching English.

Under the Immigration Law, foreigners with other visa types are not allowed to offer private tutoring to make money, except for those with student status, who can do so with restricted hours upon approval from their professors. Otherwise, foreign nationals are subject to fines and deportation.

In the meantime, the ministry has delivered official documents to public and private universities as well as elementary and secondary schools, requesting them to ensure their native English-speaking teachers are not involved in illegal tutoring.

Now, go back through and see how Kang tries to make the tenuous connection. Basically, "many" Koreans getting private English lessons---pretty much every Korean teacher I've ever met was doing it themselves or putting their children through it---and "many" are getting them illegally. In the article he first demonstrates that most of the offenders were Koreans, and later writes that all the cases subject to punishment involved Koreans, yet he remains focused on foreign tutors without the proper visa. I'm not going to pretend there aren't E-2 visa holders teaching on the side, but not only is the "crackdown on illegal tutoring ineffective," apparently so are the articles trying to demonstrate its frequency or its relative harm.

In part one of the series, Kang wrote that "Korea Is 'Heaven' for Illegal Private English Tutoring":

Many foreigners are unaware that private tutoring is illegal. Under the Immigration Law, E-2 visa holders and foreigners on tourist visas are banned from making money through giving private lessons.

In the case of F-visa holders such as F-2 (spouses of Koreans) and F-4 (ethnic Koreans), the holders are permitted to offer private lessons for money, but are required to report them to city or provincial education offices.

In reality, however, a large number of foreigners are giving private English lessons, with many of them already fulltime English teachers at schools or private language institutes. Often, they meet up with parents and students through online communities or are introduced by their friends.

Illegal is illegal, and foreign teachers earning money illegally are perhaps newsworthy, even though this "problem" is widespread among Korean teachers and, especially, Korean parents. Nonetheless throwing around "many" and "often" in lieu of facts and objectivity is irrersponsible, and we ought to expect more from "An Influential English Daily in South Kroea," even if we don't expect anything else from the notorious Kang Shin-who.

(Updated) Follow-up to the EPIK Orientation snafu.

Yesterday I posted about EPIK requiring its incoming teachers to front all the costs of their week-long orientation in February. EPIK has since come out and denied this, adding that only dependents of teachers will be responsible for their own costs. On the official EPIK site in a post titled "Urgent Orientation Update" they've posted the following:

There have been some rumors circulating around several popular blogs and forums concerning the EPIK 2010 Orientation, and we would like to clarify the misinformation. We sent an email to several of our recruiters detailing the costs of the Orientation for their dependants only. One of our recruiting agencies misinterpreted the email and assumed that all participants would be responsible for the costs and continued to inform their applicants of the changes. We are working hard to correct this mistake and assure incoming EPIK teachers that they are responsible only for their medical check and personal costs (souvenirs, extra food, extra-curricular activity costs). Again, all other costs for the Orientation will be borne by EPIK and not the applicant.

Additionally, we would like to state that there will be shuttle buses from the Incheon International Airport to the Orientation site for both the Jeonju Orientation (February 17th) and the Seongnam Orientation (February 18th). Please refer to the "What's New" section for more information.

I jumped the gun in taking the word of a recruiter, and I'm sorry for not following it through to the source. I regret causing unnecessary worry for teachers by attributing the policy to EPIK and not to one or more recruiters. I'm waiting for comment from Gone2Korea, the recruiter who sent out the emails and "misinterpreted" EPIK's information by writing

We regret to inform all teachers (for both orientation sites) that EPIK is no longer going to cover all of the costs associated with the arrival and orientation periods. We apologize for the discouraging news but we were just notified of the changes ourselves.

Why are they making teachers pay for some of the costs this semester? We’re not entirely sure but if we had to guess it’s likely because they’ve gone over their budget and cannot afford to cover all the costs this semester. Previously (past semesters) everything was covered so this is a recent change in policy and/or a budget issue. Please refer to the information below to view fees specific to your orientation site/arrival date.

Perhaps the solution is for EPIK to not farm its business out to recruiters, if indeed it is the recruiter at fault here and not EPIK.

As an update I'll add part of what Gone2Korea wrote to me in response to an email on February 4th, reprinted with permission:

Ultimately one of our staff members misinterpreted certain aspects of some rather important information that was sent form the EPIK office. Shortly after receiving this information we sent out an update to all of our EPIK teachers explaining the new policy changes. Roughly 12 hours after the initial email went out another member of our staff discovered that certain aspects of the information was incorrect so we immediately sent out a revised update which apologized to everyone for the mistake and asked them to please disregard certain parts of the previous email (orientation fees and the February 18th shuttle service specifically). Unfortunately one of our teachers had already posted the initial update on the eslcafe website and was already being viewed and discussed by hundreds of EPIK teachers who are currently getting ready to depart for the March 1st semester.

Heading home soon (but not yet).

I sat down with J.R. Breen for two hours on January 28th, and the result is in the Korea Times today. We talk about me, my blog, and what it will become when I leave Korea. Expect fuller comments in a few days, and expect regular blogging to continue for the next month or so.

EPIK requires teachers to front costs of their own orientation with two weeks' warning, according to mistaken recruiter.

Update: The EPIK Coordinator has refuted this information, saying it's misinformation circulated by recruiters. See the comments for more information, and stay tuned for a follow-up post. The original title has also been changed to reflect a more moderate tone.

Jacob of ROK Sojourn passes along some emails concerning English Program in Korea [EPIK], the government program that places native speaker English teachers in Korean public schools. This one is from a recruiter, and in short it says that EPIK will no longer be providing transportation from Incheon to the orientation site, and that teachers will have to front the entire cost of their week-long orientation. This is posted to Dave's ESL Cafe as well:

Airport Arrival Information

February 17th Arrival Information – The EPIK office is going to have a booth set up at the airport between 7:00am – 11:00pm on February 17th. Gone2Korea will also have a number of staff members (Kirk & Sharon) at the airport to assist teachers with the check in and registration process. The shuttle bus service will be available between the hours of 7:30am and 11:00pm.

Teachers who are working for one of the following POE’s should be arriving on the 17th: Busan, Gwangju, Ulsan, Jeonbuk, Gyeongbuk and Gyeongnam. The orientation will take place at Jeonju National University in Jeonju city.

Please refer to the attachment (February 17th - Arrival & Shuttle Bus Details) document for complete details.

February 18th Arrival Information (IMPORTANT) – We regret to inform teachers who are arriving on the 18th that the EPIK office has recently cancelled the shuttle bus and sign-in service at the airport (we have no idea why they cancelled it - sorry). Alternatively, the EPIK office has provided a document which explains how and where teachers need to go in order to get to the orientation site. Gone2Korea is going to have staff (Kirk & Sharon) at the airport between 7:30am – 10:00pm to help teachers out. We are going to coordinate an easily accessible meeting place in the coming week; we’ll also give out some phone numbers for people to use in case they have difficulties finding us. Note: Most signage at Incheon airport is written in English and Korean so you shouldn’t have any difficulties maneuvering the airport.

Teachers who are working for one of the following POE’s should be arriving on the 17th: Incheon, Daejeon, Daegu, Gangwon, Gyeonggi, Jeju and Chungbuk. The orientation will take place at Eulji University in Seongnam (Sungnam) city which is located just outside of Seoul.

Please refer to the attachment (February 18th – Arrival Details & Directions) document for complete details.



Orientation Fees (NEW)

We regret to inform all teachers (for both orientation sites) that EPIK is no longer going to cover all of the costs associated with the arrival and orientation periods. We apologize for the discouraging news but we were just notified of the changes ourselves.

Why are they making teachers pay for some of the costs this semester? We’re not entirely sure but if we had to guess it’s likely because they’ve gone over their budget and cannot afford to cover all the costs this semester. Previously (past semesters) everything was covered so this is a recent change in policy and/or a budget issue. Please refer to the information below to view fees specific to your orientation site/arrival date.

A. EPIK Orientation in Jeonju (Feb. 17~26)

1) Accommodation per day: 22,000won
2) A meal: 5,000won
3) Field trip fee: 20,000won
4) Welcoming Dinner: 25,000won
5) Farewell Dinner: 25,000won

B. EPIK Orientation in Sungnam (Feb. 18~26)

1) Accommodation per day: 20,000won
2) A meal: 5,000won
3) Field trip fee: 20,000won
4) Welcoming Dinner: 25,000won
5) Farewell Dinner: 25,000won

All teachers (February 17th and 18th arrival dates) – All teachers will be provided with two allowance schemes. The first is a settlement allowance of 300,000 won and the second is an entrance allowance of 1.3 million won. Both allowances are in place to help teachers cover the costs they have incurred for airfare and visa related expenses in addition to the new fees which have been outlines above.

· Settlement Allowance – 300,000 Won
· Entrance Allowance – 1,300,000 Won
Bringing enough money with you to get settled – EPIK recommends that all teachers bring 1,000,000 won – 1,500,000 won with them; however, 800,000 won – 1,000,000 won is usually sufficient. Note: It’s always wise to bring a little extra in case some unexpected expenses arise before your first pay day; therefore, if you’re able to bring a little more than the recommended amount then please do so. (Currency converter: http://www.xe.com/)"

If in fact EPIK has gone over budget and is cutting costs, this is certainly the last area they should be doing it. Didn't we just read a couple months ago about a lawmaker talking about the need for government-mandated orientation programs? What sort of first impression is EPIK making when they can't even pick people up at the airport and can't come up with a few hundred dollars to make sure their investments are acclimated and trained?

This email comes out just two weeks before teachers are to fly to Korea. There are no doubt teachers who would find work elsewhere if they knew when they applied that they'd be fronting orientation costs. This sudden decision likely violates at least unwritten agreements---insofar as Koreans even honor these in the first place---and goes against the assumptions teachers made that they'd be provided orientation. This decision would be somewhat palatable if these hidden costs weren't presented at the last possible moment, after arrangements for a year or more abroad had been made and airplane tickets already bought.

Over the course of about a year, public schools in Korea have gone from about the best place to work to the worst. They were always considered more reliable than cram schools (학원) because they were operated by the government, however policy over the past year, and plenty of anecdotal evidence has demonstrated that these jobs are just as risky---perhaps moreso because of increased expectations---than a properly-vetted hagwon. Korean lawmakers and reporters bitch and bitch and bitch about "unqualified" teachers and about the need to bring in higher quality teachers, whatever that means. Many of us have pointed out, as I did in a June 26th Korea Herald article, that Korea doesn't recognized "qualifications" and certainly isn't ready to pay for them, but this takes it to a new level. Not only will recent college graduates not come to Korea---they can't afford the start-up costs associated with public schools---but older, experienced teachers won't choose Korea either because they don't want to travel halfway around the world just to get hassled and swindled.

This move, in tandem with Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education's [SMOE] decision last year to cut 100 native speaker English teacher jobs just days before teachers were to fly here, rightfully perpetuates the stereotype of shady Korean school operators, and further damages Korea's reputation in the eyes of teachers already here and those loooking to come. If South Korea no longer wants to use native speaker English teachers in public schools, why not just come out and fucking say it?

Another "Misuda" panelist in trouble over comments, this time about "Dokdo."

Allkpop.com tells us that a Japanese panelist on the talk show "Chatting with the Beauties" (미녀들의 수다) has attracted the ire of netizens after some inflammatory comments about Dokdo in an interview. Here's what Rie Akiba told the Dong-a Ilbo:

“I did some research. And I found out that it was Korea who discovered it (Dokdo) first. But it’s difficult to determine which country does Dokdo belong to. The first country to discover it was Korea while Japan was the first to give it a name.”

Clearly I'm being facetious by calling the comments "inflammatory." The Liancourt Rocks are considered disputed territory by most of the world, but in Korea both they and the Sea of Japan are considered unquestionably Korean, and expressing any opinion to the contrary will anger netizens and normal people alike. Yes, even "it’s difficult to determine which country does Dokdo belong to" can cause so much trouble. Japanese people in Korea, especially celebrities, need to learn how dangerous expressing their opinions can be, and need to recognize when questions are asked to stir up trouble. Foreign English teachers can dodge the issue by saying something like "It's not important to me" or even "I don't know," but Japanese will likely not get away so easily. Allkpop includes a quotation from another Japanese panelist Tokiwa Fusako:

“Whenever the Dokdo issue gets escalated in the media, I would get scolded when I walk on the streets.”

In the headline I write "another" scandal because it seems netizens like nothing more than getting bent out of shape over what gets said on that program. In August, German panelist Vera Hohleiter angered netizens with a book she had written which criticized some aspects of Korean culture. According to the Korea Times, in turn quoting another paper which was using a Korean student in Germany as its source, Hohleiter wrote:

According to the Korean student, Hohleiter wrote in her book: “As a well-mannered and well-educated person from Europe, I put in a great deal of effort to appreciate the Korean society, but everyday I counter something that makes me fail to do so.”

For example, Hohleiter wrote: “Korean girls are obsessed with keeping up with the popular trend of time and therefore they predominantly wear mini-skirts. But then, when they walk up the stairways in the subway station, they make every possible pretentious effort to hide their exposed bodies. I don’t understand why they even wear mini-skirts from the start.”

The 29-year-old German also said, “Koreans have a bad taste for gossiping about foreigners. When they spot them in a public place such as in the subway, they delve into a very detailed criticism of their appearance and do it in a loud voice.”

She also said the show was scripted. The biggest scandal happened last fall, when a Korean student on the show called short guys "losers," prompting weeks of headlines and months of backlash.

Cyworld America shutting down on February 19th.

This morning a reader passed along an email he received regarding his Cyworld America account. While reading through the first draft of this post I realized a lot of people might not have the faintest idea what Cyworld is or why there's an American version. Basically it's an insanely popular Korean social networking site that launched foreign-language versions in 2006. It failed in Europe in 2008, and clearly wasn't able to compete with sites like Facebook and Myspace in the US. Anyway, the email:

We would like to thank you for using Cyworld America's service. Unfortunately, it has been decided to discontinue the service.

We sincerely apologize to you and the other members who used Cyworld America as we know that many of you greatly valued the service.

Cyworld will try its best to minimize your inconvenience.

To try to minimize any inconvenience, we have set up a simple procedure that will permit you to download the data that you have uploaded to Cyworld.

We are also offering refunds for any unused dotoris (acorns) that you have purchased. Data backup and refund requests can be processed at Cyworld America's webpage.

Please note that February 19, 2010 is the last day on which you can download your data or request a refund.


Once again, we would like to thank you for using Cyworld America's service.


Thank you.

Looks like they first sent emails around in November. The Cyworld America homepage has the following notice:

Cyworld To Shut Down Its US Service

Thank you to all members of Cyworld USA. Regretfully, Cyworld has decided to shut down its US service.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this will cause you.
Until the effective date of the closing, Members will be able to access their US Cyworld content, but will not be able to purchase any items or to use their acorns.

If you follow the claim procedure, you will receive a full refund for any acorns that you have purchased but which you have not used. Members will also have an opportunity to backup their content, such as their profile pictures, uploaded photos and the like.
The procedure for claiming refunds and backing up content will be posted on December 1, 2009.

Schedule for closing US Cyworld service

Effective immediately the Cyworld Shop service will no longer be available.
Club service and profile photo/data upload service will be unavailable after Nov 23, 2009.

From December 1, 2009 through February 19, 2010, Members will be able to request refunds for unused acorns that they purchased and also be able to back up their user data.
The specifics details regarding these procedures will be posted to the website on December 1, 2009.

As for a reason why Cyworld America might not have been popular, the reader wrote in an email

Did you even know they existed? Maybe that's why.

I vaguely remember hearing about an English-language Cyworld years ago, and I think I even created an account. Compared to Myspace and Facebook, the two big social networking sites in the United States in 2006 when it launched, I guess the big difference would be Cyworld would let you connect with Korean friends and Korean sites, admittedly not a big sale outside of Koreaphiles and Korean-Americans. But the email today tells me that Cyworld America didn't even let do that, as there was no link between the different versions, pretty much defeating the purpose.

If you can navigate Korean-language pages, or can find one of the numerous tutorials online, you can sign up with the Korean-language version with considerably less hassle than a few years ago, when foreigners had to send in a passport scan. But unless you're signing up to comment on friends' pages, or want to try out the hypercute interface because your girlfriend forces you to, you might be more satisfied or communicating with Koreans via Twitter or Facebook, or starting a blog through one of the bigger portals like Naver or Daum.