Odds and ends.

A couple of things.

** Gallery of Stupid came through with another of those horrid elementary school English videos, this one of the black kid using chopsticks. These are what elementary school teachers are required to teach as per the government curriculum. So we're not only trying to teach English but unteach all the garbage they've learned about foreigners and foreign cultures. The centerpiece of one of the lessons is a song about visiting a foreigner's house that goes "Don't take off your shoes / Don't take off your shoes / We don't take off our shoes in the house." If I thought anybody would have gotten it I would have reversed it to "Don't cover your mouth / Don't cover your mouth / We don't cover our mouths when we sneeze."

** Anybody get a Love Pot? No, that's not some bad English I saw on a shirt, a "Love Pot" is apparently a relatively big item this holiday season, if the non-stop commercials are anything to go by. At first I thought it was just a weird decoration, but it's an "aroma humidifier." You can get yours for 29,000 won, with proceeds going to a charity for underprivledged children.



** kimchi-icecream writes about his nightmarish adventure while getting the medical exam required for his E-2 visa.

** Another distasteful cartoon in the Korea Times. At this point it might be more efficient to point out when the cartoon isn't offensive.

** Quest For Cuteness's husband goes on a crappy hagwon interview.

** Otto Silver brings up some good points about all these introductions to quote-unquote Korean culture we get during orientations, meetings, and so on.

I’m not sure if it was the Gyeonggi Education Department or our city’s program, but yesterday we were treated to “Korean Culture”. 5000 years of history and all you have to show is kimchi and pottery?

No doubt the program was sincerely intended to show us more about Korean culture, and the whole day was quite fun, but sometimes I wonder if Koreans actually know what their own culture is all about. Do they not realize that watching TV on tiny screens on the bus/subway, playing games at the PC bang all day and boiling it up at the Jimjil Bang or Baths are as much part of Korean culture as kimchi is? Would it not be more useful for us to learn more about the history and use of these? Show me ONE teacher who has been here more than a month who has not heard about the whole history of kimchi. Now that I think about it, they never tell us that chili is a comparatively recent addition.

Would it not be more useful for the Provence to work on setting up language schools to teach us the Korean Language? Would we not learn more about Korean culture if we were able to experience it directly with the use of said language?

** God, Shelton Baumgartner is pleased with himself.

** The mayor of Suncheon was named the best in the nation by Economy Magazine. At least that's what I think it's saying. From the Suncheon city website, post 102:

The mayor of Suncheon tried to improve the quality of life in all areas such as education, welfare, environment, economy etc., and led the municipal government in establishing the strategic purpose "Korea's Ecological Capital, Suncheon", which is suitable for regional and distinct from other regions.

In addition, keeping the concept of the citizen at the top of the municipal administration, he sought to strengthen the competence of autonomy of the citizen, in particular, he performed, for the first time in the nation, the policy of public health and total welfare service, "Happiness 24 hours with generous people in Suncheon'', hence the high evaluation of the leadership of the administration for citizens was received. His philosophy of regional autonomy, which is managing the transparent administration based on the law and the principle, has also served as an example.

** An interesting discussion going in the comments to this ROK Drop post about the man in the Santa suit who killed eight people before killing himself. Killing people is bad, but the thread's trajectory is right that all the attention will be on the man who killed his kid, without looking at the greedy wife and the legal system that makes divorce---and thus by extension marriage---so ruinous for American men.

** Gwangju is going for the 2015 Universiade, a big international sports competition for college athletes. This May they lost out on the 2013 one, though you might remember Daegu hosted the 2003 Games, the Universiade that featured all those North Korean cheerleaders. Anyway, while searching for that first article I came across one I hadn't seen before: "Painful History Makes Gwangju Unique Candidate." The other two finalists were Vigo, Spain and Kazan, Russian, both located on a notoriously peaceful continent. When I become President of Foreigners, I'm declaring a moratorium on the use of "unique" and "sexy" by Koreans.

** I had planned a post about this year's school festival but I don't think I'll have time to get to it for a while. Suffice it to say I've heard this song way too many times.



Christ. And the English subtitles are driving me nearer the edge. Between them and the Wonder Girls you're raising a whole generation of kids to walk around talking about how pretty they are. Not in subtle terms, either, it's right in the damn refrain. You'll remember Kara began their assault on my sanity with "Rock U." I can't decide which single is worse.

** Ever since YouTube Korea came a lot of videos have been taken down, meaning if you have a blog you'll have to go through and double-check all the videos you've posted (especially music videos and commercials) to make sure they're still working.

** The Party Pooper noticed something that I didn't in those photos of "sexy Santa" Lee Yuri; the dress was clearly designed for someone quite, um, bigger.



Remember, if you vote me President of Foreigners there will be no more "sexy Santas." Jesus Tapdancing Christ, you run a Naver image search for 섹시산타 and it looks like a gallery of animitronics gone bad.

Half of foreign teachers leave after one year? GREAT!

I just about shit my pants at this, from an article "Half of Native English Instructors Quit After a Year."

According to Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, Tuesday, 144 of 273 foreign English teachers who were eligible for a renewal of their contract have signed to stay on another year.

Lee Young-chan, an education Ministry official in charge of native teachers said it was not necessary to renew every contract. ``They are neither regular teachers nor lecturers who can conduct classes independently. They are `assistant teachers,' hence their teaching experience doesn't matter much,'' he said. ``Rather, it's better for students to have more new teachers so that they can meet various kinds of foreigners,'' he added.

More evidence that you're considered completely worthless.

* Update: He's a Jeolla guy.

Hold on, let's be frank about the banking situation here.

There's an article in the Korea Times that's been at the top of the page since last night titled "Expatriates Emerge as Blue Ocean for Banks." Let's be clear before we get into it that it's just an interview with some guy and not reflective of any official policy or, like, research. But in the article it's written:

According to Riestra, there were three major changes for foreign customers ― tellers, credit cards and international ATM cards.

First of all, some local lenders provide expatriate-only services at a few of their branches.

``Nowadays, many have a handful of 'designated branches' where usually one or two tellers service foreign customers,'' he said. ``You can find branches with one of these desks and get directions from their Web site.''

Secondly, credit cards are a service foreigners are encouraged not to miss. Although some stigma still exists against certain occupational groups, aliens with credit cards are proliferating here.

Some banks, including Korea Exchange Bank, issue credit cards to non-Koreans that allow them to see all the details of their purchases, make cash advances while overseas and manage other features online, all in English.

``Through English-based Internet banking, foreigners can remit funds overseas. (If you) get your card and Internet access set up, you may not have to take a waiting-number at a branch ever again,'' he said.

Thirdly, with the government easing regulations, foreigners now have international ATM access and are able to remit over $10,000 out of the country. They can withdraw cash worth $50,000 equivalent in won at ATMs outside of the country. ``If any foreigner has an ATM card that was issued before this free-market type of move, they might need to get it changed,'' he said.

Riestra, who is Korea's first foreign holder of a masters degree in foreign direct investment at KDI School, strongly recommended that foreigners develop a relationship with their branch to get better services and negotiation power.

The discrimination foreigners face at Korean banks is one of my latest hobby horses. I'm not talking about securing loans or doing anything fancy, things that longer-term residents deal with and are thus more knowledgable about than me. I'm talking about his "thirdly," the idea that foreigners have easy access to their money. A few weeks ago my girlfriend was denied an international debit card by two Gwangju Bank branches because she's a foreigner, even though she's been a customer with them for two years. If I had been with her at the time I probably would have started moving furniture around that bank because this treatment is pretty common.

In January there was an article in the Joongang Ilbo talking about how some banks that refuse to issue these cards will cite imaginary government restrictions.

The inconsistencies of local bank rules have long been a source of irritation for foreigners living in Korea, especially as the country now aspires to be an international financial hub.

Yeah you're fucking right. I was lucky enough to get an international debit card back in 2005, and each time I go overseas I'm always worried it won't work. However, I've had success using it every time, including in the US this past summer. But I had wanted her to get one, too, should something happen to mine or should it not work.

Sometimes when foreigners aren't refused cards they're given them only to find that they don't work once they get overseas. Less of a problem if you're going home to visit the folks, but a huge one if you're travelling abroad with little cash on-hand.

I've been running a little poll on Dave's with the question "Do you have an international debit card from a Korean bank?" You can check the current results for yourself, but as of this posting 52% said "yes," 31% said "no," 8% said "yes, but it didn't work overseas," and another 8% said they'd never tried to get one. Yes, you can find some flaws with the poll, but if you read the comments you'll see that foreigners are routinely denied these cards---or are given cards that don't work---which is a severe limit on how we can use our money.

I understand the reason banks refuse them---ostensibly because foreigners can go home, withdraw a ton of money, and either avoid transfer fees or circumvent the yearly limits some banks impose. However, as the JI article points out, you can't call yourself a financial hub when you deny the most basic of services to non-Koreans. Moreover, you can make all the English menus you want, you can do English announcements on buses, you can spend millions of dollars on English villages, and you can hire celebrities to be in your tourism commercials, but all that friendliness toward quote-unquote foreigners doesn't do shit when we're struggling with the basics. If we're unable to spend our money overseas, we're going to be less eager to spend it here when we get back from vacation.

Paju English Village gets some work.

In music videos. The latest from Kim Jong-gook, the singer featuring arguably the biggest disconnect between appearance and voice.



Like my old neighborhood in Bundang, you'll see the English Village on TV in commercials and music videos every now and then. Glad to see at least some people are finding it useful, and are getting some use out of it before the novelty completely wears off.

THAT Denis Kang commercial.

Well, I'd long heard rumors about this Denis Kang commercial, but hadn't seen it until today in heavy rotation on Super Action.

Nobody has a choice of where they're born. The passport is just a piece of paper. What's real is in here. I'm still Korean. Nothing can change that.

Kang is a Korean-Canadian born to a Korean father and French mother in Saint Pierre and Miquelon. I'm not sure to whom he gave that interview, so perhaps he was just playing to the local crowd the same way Michelle Wie's father did when he said

the only thing about her that’s American is her passport, she is “definitely” Korean.

In other sports news, Team Korea beat Team Japan in some ESPN billiards contest a couple days ago. Korea's star athlete? Brooklyn-born Jeanette Lee, perhaps the most recognizable pool player in the world.



No, I don't know the difference between billiards and pool, if any, so apologies for any errors. Anyway, the presence of Lee and Charlie Williams on Team Korea didn't escape the attention of one Japanese player, who was quoted as saying

"It's Japan versus Korea and Charlie Williams!"

My Top 15 Expat News Stories of the Year.

The Korea Herald asked a few bloggers to list their top 15 stories in the expat community for 2008. I did a list as did Robert Koehler of The Marmot's Hole, Nathan Schwartzman of Korea Beat, and Michael Hurt of Scribblings of the Metropolitician.

I tinkered with my list a little last week and came up with a few slightly different versions. Some stories got dropped, others jumped around a few places, and I contemplated combining stories in order to include others, but by and large what I ended up submitting is what I first came up with. In general the list reflects my perspective as an English teacher, and so what is big in that corner may or may not be reflected in the expat community at large.

The list is here for the time being, but will switch to pay-per-view shortly, so I've pasted it below for your convenience. Also check out the three other lists on the "Expat Living" section.

1) Legacy of Christopher Paul Neil

The biggest story among the expat teaching community was the legacy of the arrest of Christopher Paul Neil, a pedophile arrested in Thailand in late 2007. Though Neil committed his crimes in Southeast Asia, that he taught for a time in Korea spawned all kinds of on-again off-again visa regulations and another round of xenophobic yellow journalism stories. While some media outlets threw every derogatory stereotype at us, foreign teachers started leaving and schools found it harder and harder to fill vacancies. Given the bad economy, the bad test scores, and the bad vibes, more people are asking not "can I get a job in Korea?" but rather "do I even want to?"


2) Down goes the won

Or up, as the case may be. The won took its biggest hit in ten years as the global financial crisis hit everyone, well, globally. It's worth pointing out that with imported teachers no longer able to save as much money -- long considered the advantage Korea held over other Asian countries -- it will be interesting to see just how many native speakers local schools will be able to find.


3) Confusing visa regulations

Right from the get-go, the new visa regulations for English teachers were a big problem. They were targeting only E-2 applicants and not other visa categories and not ethnic Koreans. They were requiring costly trips back home for five-minute embassy interviews. They were applied differently by each immigration office. And they were changing every few months without any discernible reasoning. Most recently, immigration announced a mandatory Vulnerable Sector Screening for Canadian applicants. That was news to us, and news to the Canadian Embassy, too, whom the Ministry of Justice hadn't yet told.


4) The death of Bill Kapoun

Bill and his girlfriend died in an apartment fire earlier this year. Not the first foreigner to die under suspicious circumstances in recent memory, and not the last, though it was perhaps the first so widely-publicized among the growing foreign teacher community. It was also perhaps the first time said loosely-defined community came together in a time of tragedy, and used internet sites like Facebook, blogs, and teachers' forums to do it.


5 Korea Herald editor gets stabbed

Expat Living editor Matt Lamers was stabbed with a bottle in Hongdae this June. Thankfully it wasn't premeditated or provoked by anything he'd covered in the paper, but that it was an apparently random attack was a sign of the slow but steady increase in violence and resentment against foreigners. Since one of 2008's themes was atrocious police work, and since foreigners never get a fair shake from the authorities, that he chose not to go to the cops was and is a topic of some debate among the community.


6) Foreigners go mad over Mad Cow

While the Mad Cow panic of 2008 isn't really an expat story, the weeks and weeks of protests provided endless amounts of material for my blog, and dominated the headlines on others. What kept this business in my mind wasn't so much the shouting, the regularly-scheduled protests, the child endangerment, and the banners on every street-corner: it was spending the summer answering all kinds of questions from students (and teachers) about "krajie kow."


7) The death of Michael White

In May, 14-year-old Michael White was found dead in a Gyeongsan sauna. His whole story was shrouded in mystery, and characterized by substandard medical care and inefficient police work. His mother is still looking for answers, and so are we.


8) I attract some netizen anger

A few articles I had written for local English-language media attracted the attention of a disgruntled netizen, who posted some personal information online and directed readers to "correct" my views by protesting my school and getting me fired, and thus deported. The short-term effects were a few gray hairs and an icy teachers' office, although the episode gave birth to significant questions about a foreigner's role as critic, the hypersensitivity of some, and ultimately the legitimacy of foreign voices.


9) Testing, testing

The papers talk up Korea's "unique" test culture, but foreign English teachers seem more interested in the scores. The numbers say that in spite of Korea's English fever, Koreans earn some of the lowest English scores in the world. Though more Koreans take the internet-based TOEFL exam than any other nationality, their average score puts them at 107th. According to one testing company Koreans ranked 19th out of 20 countries in English ability in 2006.


10) TaLK program introduced

And while that hunt (see No. 11) was going on, and while there was more and more paperwork required for E-2 visa applicants, the government allowed current college students to teach English in rural public schools for reduced wages under the "TaLK program," which stands for Teach and Learn in Korea. Originally it was hoped ethnic Koreans would take one for the team and return to the motherland for less money, although recruitment was well below expectations. By shooing away foreign teachers with one hand and welcoming even less-qualified ones with the other, the program came to be yet another example of the mixed messages sent by those in charge of English education.


11) The hunt for "unqualified" teachers

Another year, another assortment of campaigns against "unqualified teachers," although nobody seems clear as to what that term actually refers. A nationwide hagwon association warned that unqualified teachers were damaging the quality of English education and driving up costs. All this business makes us question what exactly "qualified" and "unqualified" mean in our line of work.


12) Korea's image problem

A lot of attention was paid to Korea's image problem and to its apparent inability to market itself to non-Koreans. As the Japanese are still the largest nationality to visit Korea, the designation of actor Bae Yong-joon as tourism ambassador makes sense. Going with the Aquafresh-inspired "Korea Sparkling" as the slogan and the enigmatic, psychedelic "Haechi" as the mascot: not so much.


13) Building international neighborhoods in Seoul

One attempt at helping the non-Koreans already here was the creation of "global village centers" in Seoul, set up around pre-existing foreign communities. The neighborhoods provide local foreigners with native-language information and with assistance on tax and immigration paperwork.


14) Feet Man Seoul goes to Seoul Fashion Week

In a big year for the local blogosphere, the bilingual street fashion site Feet Man Seoul took a huge step for bloggers by being approved to cover Seoul Fashion Week. Not only a significant step for foreign writers, but for bloggers in general, who still struggle to be treated with the same respect, or better, than mainstream journalists.


15) Beautiful foreigners on TV

The continued popularity of "Global Beauties Chat" has been a pleasant surprise. Some object to the premise, and say that it plays into the fetishization of foreign woman, but these women are smart, sexy, well-spoken and cultural ambassadors for countries many Koreans wouldn't care about otherwise. Plus, whoa, they're speaking Korean!

Korean government wants to fingerprint foreign tourists and residents by 2010.

According to the Korea Times

The Ministry of Justice said Saturday that it will propose to revise the Immigration Law so that all foreign nationals, either for short-term stay or long-term, are obliged to provide their biometric information to the Korean authorities when they come to the country. It will submit the revision bill to the National Assembly in the second half of next year, and the new regulation, if passed, will take effect as early as 2010.

Up to 2003, Korean immigration officials used to fingerprint long-term foreign residents who were to stay here for a year or more when giving them alien registration numbers. But the Roh Moo-hyun administration scrapped the biometric data collection, following criticism that it could infringe on human rights, said a ministry official.

In general it seems like a sensible plan to me. The article focuses on the tourism angle, with the subheading "Revival of Fingerprinting Expected to Have Adverse Impact on Tourism." They talked to one former Korea Times columnist:

Mike Weisbart, who has stayed here since 1995, said, ``My fingerprints have been on file at the immigration office since 1995 and I have no problems with that. But for short-term visitors, I'm not sure why they need it and, if the system is annoying or invasive, it might run counter to the government's plan to attract more tourists.''

He said that he basically believes that it is the right of the country to demand visitors give the information if they want to come here. But he said it could have an adverse impact on the government's plan to attract more incoming tourists. ``If the system is poor and is inconvenient for visitors, they will go back to their country and speak poorly of Korea,'' Weisbart said.

I can't think of any big reason why tourists would skip out on coming to a country because it requires fingerprinting. Unless they're planning to commit crimes. Provided the fingerprinting done at the airport is done quickly and in a non-discriminatory manner, I don't think it will be much more of an inconvenience than the long lines already are. In the US the plan was implemented by the Department of Homeland Security though it was left up to the airlines to fingerprint their arrivals, so I can imagine not only the chaos and disorganization but also the sense of shame foreign visitors must have felt. Rather than fighting a War on Terror by fingerprinting foreigners, the US essentially fights a War on Foreigners. Let's hope South Korea doesn't make that same mistake.

As the article says only the US and Japan fingerprint foreign tourists. When it was implemented in Japan it was a contentious issue, if the blogs are to be taken seriously. 702 out of 881 respondents to a Japan Probe poll said they didn't support the new fingerprinting system, implemented last year. A considerably larger poll at Japan Guide also reveals opposition, with 20% of respondents saying the plan is a bad idea and another 20% saying it's a reason not to visit Japan. Some foreigners organized petitions and protests, but to little effect, and some took it a little further. Meanwhile the New York Times ran an article saying the Japanese system could be bad for business.

Some of the most vocal critics have been among foreign business leaders, who say the screening could hurt Japan’s standing as an Asian business center, especially if it is inefficiently carried out, leading to long waits at airports. Business groups here warn that such delays could make Japan less attractive than rival commercial hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore, where entry procedures are much easier.

The business groups also contend that the screening runs counter to recent efforts by the government to attract more foreign investment and tourism.

“If businessmen based here have to line up for two hours every time they come back from traveling, it will be a disaster,” said Jakob Edberg, policy director in the Tokyo office of the European Business Council. “This will affect real business decisions, like whether to base here.”

As with objections to the US system, foreigners in Japan were worried about what would be done with that personal information once obtained. The plan had some growing pains, with visitors complaining of longer lines and of counters ill-equipped to handle the new procedures.

That NYT article also points out that while this system was done under the guise of preventing terrorism, the only terrorist attack carried out in Japan in recent memory was the 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway, done by a domestic religious cult. Likewise, the most recent terror attack in Korea was a subway fire started by a Korean man in 2003, and as a matter of fact the most heinous crimes in Korea are always done by Koreans. The original Korea Times article says this new system will help curtail crimes committed by foreigners, but let's not forget that in reality we're not as dangerous as we're portrayed. The media always depicts us as sexual predators, as drug-pushers, as unqualified teachers, and as criminals, but the foreigner crime rate is greatly sensationalized as ROK Drop thoroughly demonstrated. I don't object to monitoring a country's immigrant population, to taking steps to halt illegal immigration, and to reduce foreigner crime as much as possible. Hell, all three things are duties of a government. But if these measures are in fact to make Korea a safer place, let's hope that same diligence spreads to a police force and a legal system that have routinely acted counter to the safety of its citizens (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and has proven itself unwilling to help its foreigners (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Non-native English-speaking foreigners can become English teachers, government says.

According to the Korea Times, starting next year people from countries that use English as an official language will be eligible to teach English at Korean public schools.

Requirements for the non-native teachers, however, will be much stricter than those for native speakers. Non-native speakers have to hold a bachelor's degree or above in English studies and teaching licenses from their countries. According to the education ministry, more than half of current foreign assistant teachers don't even have basic English teaching certificates such as TESOL.

Give the whole article a read. We first heard about this plan last month. Having seen the way native speakers are currently used in the schools, I have to say that having more non-native speakers isn't necessarily a bad idea. The point of having native speakers in the classroom is to give students exposure to foreign cultures and to give them a chance to use the English they've learned. However, since there is some resistance to introducing foreign cultures into the classroom, since students are reluctant to speak English in class, since productive skills are deemphasized in favor of teaching toward tests, and since foreign teachers' classes are presented as goof-off time, I'm not sure they're such a wise investment.

But what really gets me is how we've spent about the last 14 months hearing "unqualified" this, "unqualified" that, and then not only has the government gone and hired teachers who haven't even graduated college yet, but has now hired foreigners for roles previously filled by native speakers. We can debate the merits of native speakers until the cows come home, but it's inappropriate to throw around "unqualified"---as this article does---when the only qualifications for teaching English here have heretofore been a college degree and a passport from an English-speaking nation. Not only does the current system not require teacher training, but it does not reward those who have completed it or who have advanced degrees. I've often wondered how useful teacher certification back home would be to the Korean classroom anyway. Perhaps it would provide some insight into lesson planning and classroom management, but does a teacher back home have any idea about the dynamics of the Korean classroom or about the culture of English education here? Besides, qualifications or not you're only a teacher in quotation marks. Until Koreans realize that using and producing the language are important, you'll be trumped by the needs of standardized tests, and your primary role will be to supervise games and to play CD-ROMs.

What is really necessary is to not only train foreign teachers how to fit in to English education here, but also to train schools and coteachers how to use native speakers in the classroom. Dull listen-and-repeat isn't it. Unsupervised chaos isn't it. Sitting in the back of the room reading a newspaper while the students run roughshod over a foreigner whose culture they don't respect isn't it. Of greater damage to education than quote-unquote unqualified foreign teachers is the way schools mishandle them.

Give the rest of the "English in the news" category a read for more on issues like this.

A reunion of EPIK proportions.

I kill me. EPIK teachers gathered last week for a year-end reunion, reports the Korea Times.

During the two-day event held at the Olympic Parktel in southern Seoul, Prof. Kevin Price of Kyung Hee University presented his experiences about Korea as an English teacher. Also, the other foreigners shared their experiences with each other. They also watched a famous performance in the evening and took a city tour on a boat cruise.

The article closed with some application information.

The program teachers can earn 1.5-2.5 million won per month according to their degrees and teaching certificates and will receive an entrance and settlement allowance and free single furnished housing. Successful candidates will conduct English conversation classes with Korean co-teachers.

*cough* Anyway, in the article they didn't actually talk to any foreign teachers, though on the same day a few teachers shared their thoughts on the program. From Connie Defalco's "Teaching Guidelines, Training Needed!":

South Korea is not well known in Canada compared to Japan, so, originally, I was going to try to teach in Japan. My daughter is currently teaching English at a Japanese university. After doing research on Japan and Korea, I realized that South Korea would suit me better. Busan is not far from Japan and the Korean alphabet was much easier to learn. I also felt that the EPIK contract was better than Japan's JET program's contract. I was also very impressed with the government's commitment to English education in Korea.

I think the most difficult time was when I first arrived in Busan. I didn’t know what to expect. At our orientation, EPIK told us that they could not tell us what to expect because everyone's experience would be different. Since I never worked as a teacher, I would have appreciated being able to observe some English classes before I began teaching. I would have appreciated being given a lesson outline and told: ``Teach this your first week.’’ I would have appreciated seeing videos of actual classes depicting different experiences.

I also find it difficult to have to depend on a Korean friend or co-worker to help me do simple tasks like ordering merchandise or buying a ticket online.

From Penny Li's "More Communication With School Principals!":

I admire my principal very much for his efforts in becoming capable in English all on his own without majoring in it in university or going to a foreign land. I also respect his passion for English education at his schools.

Of course, not all principals are like the one mentioned above, and that is mainly where most of my difficulties originate. Most principals are not capable of communicating directly with me, which would usually involve the co-teacher as a medium of up-down communication within the school. However, the Korean-English teachers are very busy people, who tend not to ask the principal for the school's support in developing new English initiatives, since doing so would potentially risk their relationship with their superior for the rest of their teaching career at that particular school.

From Danielle Henderson's "Korean Skills a Must for Future Teachers!":

In regards to schedule changes and exam dates, it appears that the last people to be informed are the native English teachers, in my case anyways. For example, I would go to class and, either it would be empty, or my students would have a confused look on their face. I would then return to my desk in the office and my co-teachers would find me and inform me that the schedule had changed. There was another time when I arrived to school only to be told to go home because the students had an exam and that my classes were cancelled. I soon realized that things are done differently here. So I had to adapt and expect that my schedule may change at any moment.

The teachers also offered advice and tried to come to some conclusions. From Defalco:

My advice for future EPIK teachers: inform yourself. Read about Korean customs and culture. Use the EPIK mentor program and support personnel if you have questions or issues. In your first week, bring bread or cake to share with your co-workers. Expect that after the initial honeymoon period, the students will probably be more talkative and your class management skills will become more important. Finally, just do your best, that's all that can be expected.

Li:

In order for EPIK teachers to function more effectively within their schools, I think it is essential to have a English education budget in each school in which EPIK teachers are placed. It can then be readily accessed for purchasing more fitting English textbooks as well as developing new education programs, since changing the hierarchical structure at Korean public schools would be very difficult in the short term. Also, I think it is necessary at this point for EPIK to organize seminars for principals of EPIK schools in order for them to gain a fuller understanding of the teaching goals of EPIK teachers, so the EPIK program would be more integrated into the Korean public education system.

Henderson:

Tips for future EPIK teachers: get to know your students, ask them questions and do your research. For example, find out what music groups or singers are popular. I did just that. When I told my students that I enjoyed listening to Big Bang and the Wonder Girls, not only were they impressed that I knew of these groups, but they were proud that I took an interest in Korean music. Finding a commonality can also open many doors with regards to mutual understanding.

From Suzanne Wagener's "'No to Corporal Punishment for Discipline'":

EPIK is an ideal way to bring English to students. As more teachers participate and give feedback, the program will go from strength to strength. A greater focus at the elementary level of schooling, where students are keen to learn, and less at the high school level, where some students don’t see the value of continuing with English education, may be a better allocation of resources.

I have only experienced students at a boys’ middle school in Cheongju and I have found these students to be polite and, on most occasions, well behaved. I have used the strategy of focusing on good behavior ― and rewarding ``good English’’ has worked well. I have not had responsibility for implementing any discipline and I have struggled at times to watch boys receiving the ``cane’’ for infractions. I believe that teachers should be role models for their students and using corporal punishment for discipline seems to me to be condoning violence and bullying.

And Grahame Wagener's "Encourage Students to Speak English Publicly!":

My advice to new EPIK teachers is to be tolerant, observe, try to immerse yourself in Korean culture, make an effort to learn Korean, be flexible because last minute change frequently happens, but above all enjoy.

I'm surprised EPIK has stayed afloat so long given the generally bad reviews it has received, though many of the complaints---disorganization, inflexibility, professional stagnation---are endemic to native speaker teaching jobs in Korea and not exclusive to EPIK. But that it's affiliated with the government has apparently allayed fears of applicants, because EPIK is still around. What I think will be more prohibitive, should applicants bother to do research, is that wages have been stagnant for years, and that the pay scales haven't changed in at least four years. When wages don't increase, and when professional develoment is neither offered or rewarded, teachers don't feel much incentive to stick around longer than one year. For a longer discussion of that, and links to more damning reviews, see this post from last month. As I saw it back when I came to Korea, moving to another country is such a time-consuming ordeal that it wouldn't be worth all the trouble for just one year.

Ah, also worth mentioning that the winners of the EPIK essay contest were announced a couple of weeks ago. The above-quoted Henderson won a bronze prize, Li and Defalco received honorable mentions, as did Mokpo's Jamie Edwards, so congratulations to him. The full list is available on this board, post number 66. I'd be curious to read the essays, though I doubt they'll be released publicly.

A very Suncheon Christmas.

Three big cheers to Therese for putting together a hell of a Christmas dinner in Suncheon yesterday for 54 people.




A big thank you, too, to everyone who cooked stuff, it was great. Also a shout-out to The Underground Grocers in Gwangju, an imported food shop that supplied the turkeys and provided a bunch of the vegetables for free. The vegetables were free, I mean, not the turkeys.

So a Bundang hagwon is advertising itself as the State Univeresity of New York?

Sort of, in a job ad titled "The State University of New York is now opening positions for dedicated educators." More about the company located near Migeum Station:

StanleyPrepUSA was established in 2005 in California, California State University San Bernardino, and now is in operation since 2008 in Bundang Korea.

StanleyPrepUSA offers intensive Academic prepatory programs in which the students, under the strict probation system, are prepared and ready to undertake undergraduate courses in the states.

We are responsible for the education in Korea for students going abroad to SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Buffalo, University of Oregon, California College of the Arts, Southern Utah University, and CSUSB.

If I remember correctly there's also a "University of Toronto" near Jeongja Station. Looking through job ads is depressing because it reminds me of my own job hunts a few years back. Wading through hundreds of nearly-identical offers, dealing with half-assed "interviews" at 1:00 AM, and trying to guage which place is going to screw me the least. My favorite line was from a recruiter for a public school position in Gyeongsangnam-do. It went something like "You'll never have to work weekends. But if you do, it won't be often." My first job was with an Avalon school in Bundang, though before that job I was also hired by two English Villages, first in Gwangjin-gu and then in Incheon. Maybe it was the other way around, I don't know, but both were operated by the local governments and both went belly-up before I even started the visa paperwork.

In other job ad news, here's one in Yeosu advertising 45 paid vacation days. The ad is from Education Adventure, a recruiter that seems to be poaching on turf once exclusively Canadian Connection's. However, I've heard a number of bad reviews of the latter in recent months, and apparently people looking to come to Jeollanam-do are trying other routes. I hate looking at recruiter and hagwon websites, but one thing that did jump out at me is that they're using a foreign skyline to advertise, presumably, a place in Korea. You'll recall last year that the city of Gwangyang, right next to Suncheon, got in trouble for using the Calgary skyline on some of its own advertisements.

Merry Christmas from Naju.

Here's a neat article about a "Catholic village" in Jeollanam-do that becomes a Christmas village each December.

Leafless trees, buildings and even farming vehicles glitter in every color as bands play, people sing carols and "Santa Clauses" entertain visitors. Christmas thus came alive from Dec. 19 to 23 in Eseulchon (village of dew), a Catholic farming village in Noan, Naju, about 280 kilometers south of Seoul.

Far more than Eseulchon's 170 residents have made it a "Christmas village." One village official told UCA News about 1,500 visitors came to the first such festival in 2007, and this year's festival has drawn twice as many.

Park Eun-jeong, 23, who came visiting from nearby Gwangju with her boyfriend, told UCA News: "It's really beautiful! I feel Christmas has already come. It's good for a village to celebrate Christmas with such a festival."

As the festival began, village head Anthony Kim Jong-gwan told UCA News that almost all 68 village families are Catholic. He said local people "naturally" became Catholics when a French missioner built Noan Church here 100 years ago. This designated cultural asset marked its centenary last November.

Well, I just kind of arbitrarily cut out that excerpt, so give the whole article a read. Below are some more photos I stole off the internet, from papers giving their watermark machine some exercise, and here are some more from a blog entry.




Loads more photos of the church are available here, and here's some information about spending the weekend at the farming village. The Christmas Village light festival will be held from December 19th through December 23rd, so stop by if you have a chance. *cough* Sorry, I'll try harder next year.

Wow, Naju's been in the news a lot lately, with recent articles on its tourist attractions and its food. I used to pass through it all the time going from Gangjin to Gwangju and considered it among the most dull places in all the land. However, having spent a little more time there I admit that while it's really only a city in quotation marks it does have some stuff worth seeing. I've written about Naju before, and have some other things there to profile but those entries are post-dated for when I'm on vacation next month.

Does this mean Korean English teachers will understand us better?

A Korean English teacher has written a book that says since corporal punishment has been abolished, controlling the students has become considerably more difficult. Here's a scenario from her book:

"Once class starts it’s a disaster. The kids giggle over their cellphones. So the teacher takes them away. One of the kids looks at her with hurt eyes and says, ‘I’m going to call the police’. The student gets angrier as the teacher goes on with the lesson. The students write the answers on the blackboard, one by one. Carrying the chalk, the student says to her ‘fuck you’ [in English]. All the students start laughing uncontrollably. The student has a wide grin at doing such a great thing. So she just had to go on. The teacher whacks the kid on the head. ‘Screw you!’ the kid says [in Korean].”

Besides the Korea Beat translation there's another English-language article here. Corporal punishment abolished? Really? Yes, it's technically illegal, but I know I see it before school every day and during every class break.

And you know, the challenges outlined in the book are the exact same ones we native speaker teachers have to deal with on a regular basis. Not as extreme, usually, but still. Our classes aren't taken seriously because, among other reasons, we don't resort to violence to control the students. This is a dichotomy I allude to when I do my "English Cafe" posts, the ones that mock the ridiculous presentation of English by foreigners for the amusement of Koreans: we're expected to be clowns, we alone, while Korean teachers literally have to beat knowledge into students.

Santaquarium?

I'm very sorry for that title. Some synchronized swimmers were at Seoul's 63 Seaworld yesterday, and provided one of the most interesting photographs I've seen in a local English paper.


Here are some others I stole off various news sites.

Wow, I am overwhelmed by the uniqueness of Korea's Christmas.

If by unique you mean "divorced from any meaningful context whatsoever and adopted because we need something cute to do since all the other holidays are depressing and revolve around dead ancestors and foreign invaders," then yeah, unique. Fuck this shit.

Korean literacy up, Korea finds.

The results of a basic literacy test found that only 1.7% of Korean adults are illiterate. The National Institute of Korean Language said it was the first such survey since 1970, when adult illiteracy was at 7%. They sound pleased.

An academy official said global average illiteracy is 60.8 percent in underdeveloped countries, 10.9 percent in developing nations, and about 2.3 percent in developed nations. "Therefore, we can say that Korea has joined the group of advanced nations in terms of basic literacy rate."

Jesus Christ, what 5,000 years of history can do.

The UN keeps track of this kind of thing more frequently than South Korea apparently, and while a 99% literacy rate is awesome, Korea still ranks behind "advanced" countries like Latvia, Poland, Armenia, Cuba, Tajikistan, and Canada. That's because Korea has a sad history I think, unlike Latvia, Poland, Armenia, Cuba, or Tajikistan.

Because the Korean alphabet is so scientific easy to learn, and is designed specifically for Korean, it's no surprise so many can read and write. That latest Chosun Ilbo article doesn't talk about the degree to which they're literate, though. Other studies have found that reading comprehension is down, as is knowledge of the Chinese characters that were used before Hangeul and which form the foundation of the language.

Test day.

No classes today as middle school students are taking another round of standardized tests. You'll remember a couple of months ago some teachers with the Korea Teachers and Education Workers' Union allowed their elementary school students to cheat on the exam or to abstain by taking field trips, both measures taken to protest what is considered superfluous testing and to demonstrate how unnecessary the exams are. The union said in October:

"The uniform test is an act of suppression against students' human rights, and ranks students and schools into a hierarchy based on their scores," the teachers' union said in the statement.

Seven teachers were fired for undermining the exams, including the man pictured above, who continues to hold class outside the school in front of a police barricade. Here are a few more pictures of the events outside his school yesterday. Students are holding banners that say having police outside makes for a scary school. Even more scary is teachers manipulating students for their own political ends.






That's in the news because today is the middle school version of the standardized tests (일제고사), which will evaluate schools' performance. Some 1.35 million students will take it today. People are right to be upset about them, considering students finished their three-day tests two weeks ago, and of course don't care about these. In fact, having tests all morning interferes with our school festival preparations. From the Korea Times:

Progressive educators and parents groups are also increasing calls for the government to stop the ``standardized test'' for elementary and middle school students and reinstate the dismissed teachers.

Professors' union groups also joined the campaign to stop the test. They contended that educational motivation through competition is more than enough and many students have already been suffering from study pressure during a media conference held Monday in front of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education.

``The state-run test will deteriorate the situation at elementary and secondary schools. The uniform test will rank schools by scores and only boost unnecessary competition,'' the professors' group said in a statement.

Some 20 other civic and womens' groups have joined the protest against the government test, arguing the test will increase private education costs and trigger competition among children.

However, conservative groups called for the progressive groups to stop protesting. ``Avoiding the test is anti-educational. Their protest is confusing parents and students. Educational authorities should stand firmly and take stern actions against any illegal activities by the protesters,'' the Korean Federation of Teachers' Association said in its statement.

Union members have been protesting outside schools. Here's a middle school in Suwon:




I'm at a school with a big union presence, in a province with the highest percentage of KTUnionized teachers in the country. You can guess what the reaction to all this test business has been down here.

Odds and ends.

I don't feel like writing ten different posts.

** Korean economy down, soju consumption up. Nothing suprising there.

** Here's an interesting article about a Korean man who recently retired from his academic career "after living the American dream."

Sung M. Lim has lived what he considers the true American dream.

His life in the United States started in 1961 when he left South Korea with $100 in his pocket and a few changes of clothes. He was headed to Mississippi State University in Starkville, Miss., to pursue graduate studies in plant genetics and breeding.

His 42-year professional career came to a close recently following his retirement from the University of Arkansas as the head of the department of plant pathology.

Sung, 74, describes his life as "work, work, work."

But work is not the only priority in his life. His dedication to his family runs deep and that trait flowed over to his interaction with colleagues and his students.

Many words have been used to describe Sung -- humble, honest, hardworking, dedicated, honorable and integrity among them.

Sung's life did not take the path he expected, but it took a path he has enjoyed.

** Korean women are apparently pretty good at hockey, winning four out of the last five women's Junior Asia Cups. I admit it took me a couple of seconds to realize that "the Indians" was actually referring to Indians.

** A teacher in Mokpo has started collecting and posting those cringe-worthy videos from the elementary school CD-ROMS. The blog is here, a continuation of what we saw from HolyTaco last week.

** Are you Japanese and interested in travelling to the US? Better heed these tips, first. The embarrassing thing is that many of them hold true. I mean, if I knew a foreigner visiting LA, the second thing I'd tell them---after "don't visit LA"---is "be careful you don't get killed."

** The Korea Times looks at "Ten Culture Trends in 2008." Number one is "The Death of Celebrities in 2008." Probably a more tasteful way to go about that I think.

** Here's a photo gallery of "sexy Santas" dancing at a pro basketball game in commemoration of the desecration of Christmas. Whatever, I'd probably hit it. The attractive women, I mean, not the seven-year-olds.



** A teacher slash photographer in Jindo is selling some prints this holiday season. She always sells them, it's just that she recently posted about them, so there you go. The Flickr set is here, though as the post says there are others available. They look really good.

Body Adventure 2008 in Busan.

No, that's not what I've titled my weekend plans. Body Adventure 2008 (2008 신나는 몸속대탐험전) is an interactive exhibit on the human body at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center from December 18th through February 15th.



It's aimed at small children, based on the above and other photos. While looking around Naver the picture of the white person caught my eye, but it would turn out to be the least-interesting photo I found.












Some of those are from when it last came to town over the summer. The photo galleries on Naver look cute, the kids seem to be having fun, and you're right to criticize me for cherry-picking those last few photos to use them as further evidence of Koreans' obsession with poop and rear-ends. To be fair, though, I was looking for pictures of what's under that pregnant woman's skirt. But back to the poop, I wonder why McDonald's and Lotteria don't sell chocolate soft-serve ice cream cones. Surely they'd be the most popular items on the menu. And I'm not even talking about serving it in little toilets as they do in Taipei; the Korean customer doesn't need the hint.

Snowy day.

Gangwon-do? Try Gangwon-snow! HAHAHAHAHA. *cough*



That's part of a photo gallery taken in Gangwon's Goseong county on the 22nd. Because the other Brian in Korea gets mad when I poach on his territory, take a look at his post on the subject before this gets ugly. Here's a few more photos from the county that got two feet of snow today.








Other parts of the province got over 100 centimeters.

New Year's stuff down south.

The sun rises over the water off Yeosu's Hyangiram hermitage.

Sorry, I meant to post this a while ago. The Joongang Ilbo recently had profiles on three places down here where people like to go to watch the first sunrise of the year: Namhae's Boriam hermitage, Yeosu's Hyangiram hermitage, and Suncheon's Songgwangsa temple. In addition to those three, Haenam's 땅끝---the southernmost point on peninsular South Korea---and the summit of Jirisan are the two other popular spots.

There are sunrise festivals (일출축제) all over the country. As for Jeollanam-do, there are ones in Goheung, Mokpo, Wando, and Yeongam, plus the ones mentioned in the first paragraph. I've been told that Hwa-po (화포), in Suncheon's Byeolryang-myeon, is a place of some local popularity to catch the first sunrise of the year. See for yourself:



It's across Suncheon Bay from . . . Suncheon Bay, just facing in the opposite direction so as to greet the rising sun. Buses numbered 81 and 82 go from Suncheon Station to Hwa-po , though only 81 looks like it'd get you there on time, as it starts its route at 5:55 am.

Out of all those, I think I'd most like to go to Hyangiram for New Year's. The thing is, unless you have your own transportation, or plan to spend the night, you might be out of luck as some of these places are pretty remote. Depending on how early buses leave, and how far away each place is, you might be able to pack yourself onto a bus. I haven't found a comprehensive listing of sunrise times, but you can calculate it for yourself, in Korean, via this page, or you can check last year's times here. The sunrise in Busan, for example, is scheduled for 7:32 am and that should give you an idea about times around the country. No information on any of this in English, because everyone knows foreigners don't care about this kind of stuff.

As for me I'm going to spend dawn on Busan's Haeundae Beach. It's pretty, popular, picturesque, and easy to get to. It also sees one of the earliest sunrises on the peninsula. Unlike most teachers, though, I have to work on the 31st, which means if there's a lot of traffic that evening I might not make it to Haeundae until 2009.

If you have any questions or anything to add, please leave a comment. See if we can't dig up more information for some of these local festivals.