Man beats up elementary school student in the elevator . . .on tape.

Scroll down for updates (latest on April 6)

Some really ugly stuff here (on youtube here), but one of the top stories on Naver.



Video news report available here. One of the guys who originally broke the story said the video news report mentions the police's unwillingness to do anything, but of course I'm not fluent so I don't know for sure.

* Update 1: The Korea Times has the story in English now. Excerpts:

The girl had her hair pulled out and received bruises to body. Her parents reported it to the nearby police branch office about 10 minutes after the incident.

Police officers collected testimonies from the parents and the neighbor and checked the CCTV recording in the elevator. Despite the apparent kidnap attempt, the officers reported to Ilsan Police Station the next day that it was ``just a simple assault case'' committed by a drunken man, based on testimony that he smelled of alcohol.

and

Police are being criticized for neglecting the case and thus losing the chance to catch the suspect at an early stage. It was also reported that the police asked her mother not to talk about the case to the media.

President Lee Myung-bak said Monday that the public is incensed over the police's lukewarm attitude.

``As seen on the CCTV recording, it was really brutal. The state's utmost duty is to protect people's lives, but the police still show such an attitude at this time when many cruel cases remain unsolved and people feel pity for them. The police need to change,'' Lee said.

Absolutely Sparkling.

* Update 2: Caught him:



The Korea Times has the story in English. An excerpt:

Lee said that he was drunk when he was walking behind her. The girl gave him a suspicious glance, and he tried to tell her that he was not a bad person. He got angry at her attitude and beat up her, according to his testimony. Police are investigating the reason for this action.

He was previously in jail for 10 years for habitually sexually assaulting minors and was released two years ago, police said.

Police caught him after confirming through CCTV recordings in subway stations on line 3 that he took a subway train at Daehwa Station near the apartment complex and got off at Suseo Station.

Despite the arrest, police are being faulted for failing to react swiftly to the failed kidnapping and losing the chance to catch Lee earlier.

Her parents reported the attack to a nearby police office about 10 minutes after the incident. Police officers collected testimony from the parents and the neighbor and checked the CCTV recording in the elevator. Despite the apparent kidnap attempt, the officers reported to Ilsan Police Station the next day that it was ``just a simple assault case'' committed by a drunken man, based on testimony that he smelled of alcohol.

Ah, employing the "I was drunk" defense. Smart move.

* Update 3: The story is in all the papers now, as is news that "Child Sex Offenders Will Face Harsher Penalties." The Chosun Ilbo has a bunch of other articles and editorials on the matter, including "Too Dumb and Too Lazy to Protect and Serve?" An excerpt:

On March 27, around 100 leaflets displaying the face of the criminal were posted in and around the apartment complex, printed by the parents after they heard nothing from the police. It wasn’t until March 29 that a detective from Ilsan Police Station came to investigate the scene of the crime, which had been assigned to him on March 27. The detective is said to have taken a day off on March 28. It was only after the news report on Sunday night that the chief of Ilsan Police Station appointed an investigative team to the case and made a huge ruckus in the process.

At 11 a.m. on March 26, the National Police Agency had announced a comprehensive set of measures to deal with child abductions and missing children. The NPA had made the announcement after mounting criticism over its ineptitude after it took 82 days to catch the criminal who murdered Lee Hye-jin (11) and Wu Ye-seul (9). The murderer was discovered to have been a neighbor. The agency vowed it would create a 1,056-strong special unit handling missing child cases and would swiftly mobilize the maximum number of forces once a report is filed. Less than six hours after that, it was shown up to have been a huge bag of hot air.

For all the ragging on Dave's and the other forums, this is another story that was broken on that site, well before mention was ever made in (English-language) newspapers and on blogs. Other examples include the abusive daycare center in Itaewon, child molestor in Vermont Hanse Park, and the story of Bill Kapoun. So it does pay to sift through the "Why do Koreans have black hair?" and "Where should I live: Gangnam or Wando?" threads every once in a while.

* Update 4: From a Joongang Ilbo story from a few days ago:

About 170 police officers were assigned to the case yesterday.
The incident happened Wednesday afternoon. The suspect punched and kicked the third-grade girl, who sustained numerous bruises. The man then fled when a neighbor arrived.

Staggering how many officers had free time. As was demonstrated in the case of the abusive daycare, and was reaffirmed here, when it comes to criminal matters, especially against children, it is much more effective to go to the media than to the police. Another excerpt:

The girl’s father reported the case 10 minutes later. The Daehwa branch of the Ilsan police department took the call, but only informed higher authorities the next day, classifying it as a misdemeanor, police said.
Although witnesses and the surveillance footage showed the man was holding a weapon, the initial police report left out that information, police said. The case was initially categorized as misbehavior toward a child by a drunken man.
Police also obtained a fingerprint believed to be that of the suspect from the elevator, but waited two days to send the evidence to the crime lab. They didn’t get a positive identification, so they told the girl’s parents there was nothing they could do.
After the angry parents and neighbors criticized the lack of effort by the police and posted posters with a photo of the suspect from the video footage, the police on Saturday took a look at the tape for the first time.

And posters on one of Korea's expat forums made some good points. One, if the neighbor hadn't gotten involved, and would have just looked the other way as is common in Korea, the kid would have been gone. Two, that the police, both here and in the case in Anyang, seem to have made the assumption that these men were merely disciplining these children, and in Korea it is considered approrpriate for older people to set kids straight. Third, that for all we hear about how Korea is a safe country---and in many respects it is a safe country, much much safer than the US in many respects---it is definitely not a safe country for children. Children are the frequent victims of car crashes: 4th highest among OECD nations, according to this KT article, and that's of course not taking into account pedestrians, who comprise roughly 40% of fatalaties in car accidents over here. And as you see when you're flipping through the channels or looking at your bills, there is no shortage of children's faces for the missing persons reports.

That so many parents escorted their children to school following the Anyang case and this one is evidence that people are outraged by the crimes and by police ineffectiveness. That's a good thing. However, I also recall people being outraged after a middle school girl was held captive and raped by 800 men, but I haven't heard any updates on that. We'll see how this one goes.

* Update 5 (April 6, 19:00): I put the video up on youtube to make it easier to share, and in case the news article links change.

Good thing Hines Ward is bald and all grown up.

Because if the Pride of Korea were a student in Korea and had him some curly hair, he might have to cut it off. From the Hankyoreh, via Korea Beat, comes a story that students with naturally brown or curly hair will be issued ID cards to prove that their styles are natural . . . or else be forced to cut or dye their hair to conform to dress codes. Read the whole article here. Two excerpts:

Recently schools have been requiring students with naturally colored or curly hair to obtain proof. Students with naturally-colored hair must get confirmation form their parents and teacher and keep the proof with them when they go to school. A large number of schools in Seoul, including Ilshin girls’ High School, Gyeonggi Girls’ High School, Daewon Girls’ High School, Dongmyeong Girls’ High School, and Seomun Girls’ High School, issue the ID cards.

and

The “natural hair ID cards” are a “solution” to the issue. But there are many schols which don’t have the cards yet have no problems, so there appear to be no significant results from them, because the educational authorities’ call for “curly or colored hair” as the enforcement standard exposes a cramped view of standardization. Already in our society 1 in 8 marriages are international. Perhaps in the future students will also need “natural skin color ID cards” and “natural eye color ID cards”.

Here's a picture of a "natural hair ID card," from Hankyoreh via Daum:

Beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Well, not completely, but I couldn't think of a better title. The sun was shining for a while today, after a good downpour that ruined my plans yesterday. It clouded up after I left the damn apartment today, but whatever. A lot of trees were in bloom. I'm still getting the hang of this camera, and was kind of disappointed with some of the shots, so I'mma just blame the clouds, the awkward sunlight, and the insects. Anyway, anyone in Suncheon interested in seeing some blossoms in person ought to walk along 동천 stream from the Duckie Boat harbor nearly up to Suncheon National University, a good stretch which should take you between thirty and forty-five minutes. You'll also find blossoms along 중앙로 just past the university, near the new 유심천관광호텔, and along the stream which runs beside it. (April 6 update: There is a nice stretch of yellow flowers south of the Duckie Boats, so check that out too.)






A Jindo chained outside with his cute little friend.


Stones piled up at Hyangrimsa temple, a disappointment located sort of behind Suncheon National University.




Here's one from April 6th, the next weekend . . . no reason to start its own entry:



Just a reminder for anyone in the area who likes looking at flowers and stuff while walking, the Yeongchuisan Azalea Festival (영취산 진달래 축제) is on through April 10 on Yeosu's 영취산 mountain. Also on the mountain is Heungguksa temple, and since you're in the area why not visit me? you might be interested in Suncheon's Seonamsa temple, which is known for looking its best each spring. I agree. Here's a photo set from when I first visited Suncheon, and Seonamsa, about eleven months ago.

Bass so low you dig it with a shovel.

In celebration of nothing in particular, here's a damn catchy techno song from Seamus Haji and Doug Lazy, "Head to Toe.":

He said he killed him with it over there.

More evidence that the Korea Times needs an editor. That headline is murder. Took quite a few read-throughs to have a vague idea what it's talking about. The opening paragraph is a killer, too.

The chief of a civic organization that looks after the house where former President Park Chung-hee was born was murdered by a man in his 20s at the house, Wednesday evening.

After a very dull teachers' workshop yesterday, and the misspelling of my name on the school website, perhaps I'm just hypersensitive about the bludgeoning of my native language.

Pittsburgh Pirates are Asian-free again.

Your Pittsburgh Pirates won't have any Asian players on the team for the first time since . . . a few months ago. They will buy out the contract of Gwangju's Byung-hyun Kim, who was signed in the off-season. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Kim, 29, was signed Feb. 24 to a one-year, non-guaranteed contract with an $850,000 salary and as much as $1.15 million available in performance bonuses. But he has been a major disappointment from the outset, taking five days to sign that contract after the agreement had been reached, then needing two weeks to get his arm into shape to pitch.

Once Kim finally pitched, it got worse: He had a 14.40 ERA and five home runs in as many innings.

As one senior team official put it, "He hasn't exactly made much of an impression."

That continued yesterday, when Kim missed what likely was his last chance to impress. He had been scheduled to pitch the seventh inning of the Pirates' game against the Minnesota Twins -- a 7-3 victory -- but he told the coaching staff he was ill and was given permission to leave McKechnie Field shortly after noon.

Kim was the first Korean in Pirates history. Not sure if he'll actually count, though, since he never pitched a regular season game for them. I wonder if he'll end up signing with the team in Gwangju? Former Major Leaguers Hee-seop Choi and Jaewong Seo are there, as is Jose Lima. As the East Windup Chronicle points out, if Kim doesn't stick around, and if Park Chan-ho gets cut, there won't be any Koreans in the Major Leagues.

And, according to today's Post-Gazette, Masumi Kuwata will retire. He was signed last year and was the first-ever Japanese player on the Pirates. The Post-Gazette tells us that he was a superstar in Japan, but in true Pirates fashion, they signed him as a 39-year-old, thirteen years after his MVP season. Thinking being that any Japanese player is better than your run-of-the-mill Pirate. The chronological sequence on his Baseball Reference wiki page is funny: "2003-2006: Further decline," "To the USA." From the Post-Gazette:

The Pirates offered him a chance to pitch today against the Detroit Tigers, one final time, but respectfully declined and said he preferred to simply watch the game from the bullpen.

General manager Neal Huntington also offered him a coaching job, and he turned that down, too.

Kuwata, a 20-year veteran in the Japanese Central League and 1994 most valuable player, fulfilled his dream of pitching in Major League Baseball last year when the Pirates promoted him June 9 for a game at Yankee Stadium. He would make 19 appearances and have a 9.43 ERA.

Pitch 19 games for Pittsburgh, get cut, be a coach. I guess the job market back home isn't as tough as I thought. Anyway, I felt really bad when Kuwata got cut last year. His family flew in from Japan to see him pitch in the Majors for the first time, and he got released the next day.

Interesting to note that the only two Koreans to ever play in the NHL got their start in Pittsburgh. Jim Paek spent parts of four seasons with the Penguins and earned two Stanley Cup rings. And Richard Park was drafted by the Penguins in 1994 and played 58 lackluster games with them before finding more success elsewhere. And an interesting bit of trivia is that the Pirates were reportedly trying to sign Lee Seung-yeop a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly, he was looking for big money, though, and when the Pirates and a half-dozen other teams wouldn't pay $25 million for an unproven, smallish slugger, he went back to Japan.

Abusive kindergarten teacher at my old school in Gangjin.

Pop-up at the 강진동초 site.

I stole this story from Korea Beat, who has translated a Naver article about a kindergarten teacher who taped shut the mouth of one of her students. This happened at the kindergarten adjacent to Gangjin East Elementary School. I used to teach the kindergarten students there once a week, in the same room shown on the video news report. An excerpt of the Korea Beat translation:

At this kindergarten on the 19th a teacher, Choi, used tape to close the mouth of 6-year old Yun for 30 minutes.

The reason was that the child frequently disturbed class and would not listen to the teacher.

The tape used was 5-centimeter vinyl tape of the kind used for packing boxes, kept at the school for arts and crafts.

The boy’s parents said this afternoon that he sufferes from sleeplessness and feelings of fear.

The school's website no longer allows people to view teachers' photos and now requires teachers to log-in. That prompt was not there a few days ago.


Cute kids. Like everyone else in Gangjin, they had no idea what I was talking about.

Brain. *sigh* Just can't win.

After seven months at my school, they finally put my name up on the website.



I know nobody else cares, but Jesus Tapdancing Christ, it is my name. A lot of Koreans are quick to point out my mistakes in hangeul, but when it comes to written English they sure are careless about spelling, punctuation, and typography. Pick up any English book or newspaper printed in Korea, or visit any English-language website here, and chances are you'll find pretty random capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. I have to conclude it's due to complete indifference about the rules of this monkey language. They are exposed to the alphabet their whole lives . . . just look at your keyboard, for instance. But the complete inability around here for many to use the English alphabet is face-slappingly exasperating. I'm gonna bring it up at next week's teachers' workshop. This last one was so dull that I regret not talking about forcing my love shots on unsuspecting women.

Well, "Brain" is a pretty common mistake, and even though that doesn't make me feel any better, this mistake isn't as bad as the name that's on my Kim's Club card---Deotsch---or the one that appeared on my schedule last month--Brian Dueth.

Legs good, love shots bad.

Two stories on sexual harassment rulings in two days from the Korea Times. Yesterday a court ruled that photographig a woman's legs in public does not constitute sexual harassment. Today the KT reports that forcing a woman to do a love shot does. An excerpt:

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a construction company owner identified as Koo, 48, must pay a 3 million won ($3,000) fine, upholding a lower court's decision.

The businessman was indicted without physical detention in August 2005 on charges of harassing two waitresses at a golf club's restaurant in South Gyeongsang Province.

In the ruling, the court said ``Despite the waitresses' resistance, Koo forced `love shots' on them by utilizing his relationship with the restaurant's owner.''

``Given overall matters concerned with this case ― the waitresses resisted Koo's attempts to hug and caress them before drinking ― we can only conclude his behavior was sexual harassment,'' the court said.

I'm wondering whether I should bring this up at my teachers' workshop this afternoon. I'm afraid, though, that if I give them an article with the line "Despite the waitresses' resistance, Koo forced love shots on them" I'll be charged with sexual harassment, too.

Actually I just brought up the teachers' workshop so I could sneak the "love shots on them" line in there. I'm sure this topic would induce just as much silence among them as any other. I've never witnessed forced love shots at a company dinner. The strangest time I recall was last month when one of the office workers started counting out the virgin women sitting at the table. "One virgin, two virgin, three virgin," and so on. At first I thought he was just really confused about the terms we use for unmarried women, since Koreans are virgins before marriage , and just had forgotten a term like Miss or unmarried. Then my coteacher clarfied things by saying that "virgin is somebody who didn't have sex." I must have misunderstood him, but now it made perfect sense. He wasn't trying to tell me about who was single, he was just telling me who hadn't had sex.

One commenter on the KT site has weighed in with his take:

schengen (121.129.42.54) 03-26-2008 02:27
PS lets line up this Koofucker together with the farmers who both represents old korea

schengen (121.129.42.54) 03-26-2008 02:25
ballast can have a destabilising effect on a ship in response a shipscrew will pump out the ballast my solutions is to get rid of this cocksucker Koo who is destabilising the progress of korea

So that's how that works.

Zauhory's interview at the embassy.

A guy heading to Mokpo soon had one of those requisite (really?) face-to-face interviews at the Korean Embassy. Here's how it went:

My name was written Zauhory, good times. The diplomat asked me my name, where I was from, my educational background, and my opinion of the Spitzer affair. The whole process took less than five minutes to do. Then I had to hop the bus home which was another four hours out of my day. Eight hours on a bus for a five minute interview?

Lame. For me, the face-to-face interview would most likely be a deal-breaker unless---fat chance---my boss reimbursed me for it. I handled everything in person at the Ko-nsulate in New York in 2005. The cost of plane tickets, the motel, the visa fees, and spend money put the trip at roughly $600. Okay, not an insane amount of money, but more than I'd like to spend on something useless. Plus, New York is a shithole. Since these new interviews look about as well put together as the immigration crackdown in 2005, it'd be hard to persuade me to jump through those hoops. Also, I'm kinda not, like, a criminal or anything, and I resent the implication and stuff.

"Zauhory" is the guy I mentioned yesterday who was going to work at the Gangjin Foreign Language Village, but got switched to Mokpo kinda last minute. That's how I'm vaguely acquainted with him and his blog.

Another horrible Korean cop story.

Another disgusting story for the "Korean Cops Are Utterly Worthless" category. Here's an excerpt from an article by Matthew Lamers in the Korea Herald (edit: you now have to pay to read the story on the KH site, but it was copied and pasted here):

David Kim, 37, and his wife, Kim Yun-hee were out for what they described as a midnight snack in Dapsimni, eastern Seoul, when they were attacked by a group they described as four gangsters on March 9.

David said after eating they went to a singing room, where the gangsters confronted them in the lobby, attaching various slurs to the word "foreigner," then the couple was physically attacked. He said the attackers broke his jaw in half and tried to rape Yun-hee. His wife came away from the incident with bruises and broken teeth.

"When I came back to Korea, my motherland, I obviously hoped for belonging and acceptance -- but it's really not there," said David.

"It's tough for me because when I go back to Canada, I'm not accepted as a white person, and in Korea I'm not accepted as Korean. I had a tough time growing up in Canada because there was a lot of racism," he explained.

In an interview at the hospital, David said: "My jaw is split in two. My front teeth are gone. They dragged (Yun-hee) into a norebang room, were holding her down and said they were going to rape her."

But she managed to break away for long enough to call the police. By the time they arrived at the scene, three of the four attackers had fled, but David's said his hope for justice didn't last long.

"At the police station it was apparent they (the police and one of the attackers) knew each other. They asked me to sign a statement that was completely false. They weren't concerned about my medical condition and no ambulance and no doctor was called, even though I had a broken jaw, and (Yun-hee) had been slapped around and almost raped."

What's most amazing, David said, was when the police telephoned Yun-hee and told her that no charges were going to be placed.

"Two days later the police called my wife and said we should take a settlement."

He added that the police investigator has not taken statements from the victims, now over two weeks past the incident, and he worries about a just outcome when only one side has the ear of the police.

"We got attacked by gang members and the police actually told us, the victims, that they, the attackers, aren't going to press charges. It's amazing," said David.

You don't have to look very hard for examples of Korean cops being absolutely worthless. But if you're interested in more examples of Korean cops being downright ugly toward foreigners, go read the Metropolitician's account of being arrested for trying to report harassment to the police, or the story of Winter Raymond's shoddy treatment by cops and by hospital staff after being assaulted and nearly raped. Matter of fact, I don't think I've ever heard of a run-in with the police here that ever turned out good for a foreigner.


Cops sparkling!

Gangjin Foreign Language Town will finally open.

The Gangjin Foreign Language Town in Chilryang-myeon will finally open on March 27th. It was originally slated to open in August, 2006 at Gangjin East Elementary School, and I was under contract to work there for all of last year. Yet in spite of the delays, budget problems, and indescribable disorganization, all of which gave them another 18 months to prepare, they still went ahead with "Welcome Your Visit to Gangjin-gun."


Stolen from Yonhap via Naver.

So bravo everyone's life over there. For those unfamiliar, English Villages are kind of like a mini-camp, where students will go for anywhere between one and five days and will participate in a lot of hands-on, interactive role-playing at different stations. The Gangjin Shinmun article mentions "hospital," "department store," "immigration counter," and so on. These villages are all the rage in Jeollanam-do, and there are already villages in Naju, Jangheung, Gurye, Gwangyang, Boseong, and a ton of other places. A different group of students arrive every few days or every week, so the teachers there run through the same lessons over and over. The article mentions that it will serve students from 3rd to 9th grade. I remember there was a big emphasis on preparing my students for going to the English Village, since they were pretty low level (well, consistent with rural elementary school students all over the province, I suppose). Anyway, you haven't experienced frustration until you've had to teach an "Immigration" dialogue to fifth-grade students who can't read, and a "hospital" dialogue to third-graders who can't do anything.



Originally the English Town was going to be placed above the cafeteria at Gangjin East Elementary School. There were a few empty classrooms up there, but they just put in a brand new library, with computers and stuff, up there, too, so a lot of folks didn't want that ripped out. The Foreign Language Town now occupies the former site of Chilryang Elementary School, which closed in 1999. Renovating that school cost about 650 million won.

It was also unpopular among some because it meant that foreign teachers would be taken out of the elementary schools and concentrated at the Village. So instead of each class seeing an English monkey foreign teacher every day, and having his class every week, they'd visit an immersion-ish Village once a semester.

Another consequence of phasing out native speakers was that homeroom teachers would have to teach English classes without the help of a native speaker. Not too difficult, since Koreans have had a decade or more of English education in schools, and are exposed to the language their entire lives. Moreover, the textbooks are to be taught with a CD-ROM, so the teacher really doesn't have to talk at all, and the teachers' guides are entirely in Korean. The entire curriculum is designed to accommodate Korean homeroom teachers who may or may not have any idea what they're doing. But in the infinite wisdom of the people at my school, the teachers decided this would be an incredibly difficult task, and wanted to get an early jump on it by teaching all their classes alone in the spring semester, even though they had a native speaker at their disposal. Not sure if you've ever been kicked out of your own English class or asked to leave your own office, but it's a terribly disrespectful thing to experience. To make matters all the more infuriating, my coworkers refused to take English lessons from me, and skipped all of the weekly Classroom English classes I hosted. The classes of theirs I did observe consisted of teachers speaking in Korean for the entire class, forcing students to memorize dialogues---even though most students didn't know their ABCs yet---and getting physical if a student failed.

One incident in particular really helped move Hite off the shelves at the local grocery store. There were tons of meetings throughout the year for Korean English teachers, since they would face some difficulties after the white people left such as pressing play. There were several demonstration classes, too, though I was usually never told. I did get wind of one and so I went. The class was okay, and the students were well rehearsed, well trained. Like any demonstration class, it was clear the teacher spent an unrealistic amount of time preparing for it, but whatever, it worked. Anyway, after the demonstration came time for the audience of teachers to give their thoughts. There were a few dozen of us, and I was the only white guy (by that point I was one of only two white elementary school teachers in the county). They went in order around the room, getting everybody's take, and you can probably guess what happened . . . they skipped over me, pretty blatantly. And it's not like I was among strangers. About a quarter of the people in the room were my colleagues. Afterward I told my coteacher that I wish somebody had stood up for me when the moderator skipped over me, and she responded with "why should they stand up for you, you're not the principal." I think she took "stand up" literally. *sigh* Or not. She did hate me after all.

I'm curious who will staff it. When I arrived in Gangjin in August, 2006, I was to be the only foreigner there. At various times throughout my contract they told me that as few as one and as many as nine foreigners would work at the Town. I've been in contact with one guy who was schedule to go there in late-March, but right before he was getting his contract and visa stuff in order they notified him that the position had already been filled. This Yonhap article (via Naver) says that three foreigners and one Korean teacher will work there, although who knows. I've seen statistics on other English Villages in Jeollanam-do, and the Korean teachers have almost always outnumbered the foreign teachers. At the one in Jangheung, for example, there are three Koreans, one Canadian, and one Filipino.

Nobody asked, but I don't really like the idea of English Towns. I think the money spent could have gone toward improving the nonexistant English skills of the Korean English teachers there. (My coteachers included a very pregnant music teacher who couldn't speak any English, a substitute gym teacher, and a 5th grade homeroom teacher). I'll admit I'm not an impartial observer, though, because of the overwhelmingly poor treatment I received at the hands of my coworkers. This English Town is also a curious thing to build since there is already an "English Only Zone" at 중앙초교 in Gangjin-eup, which already cycles the students in for immersion programs, and which already features a bunch of the same stations mentioned in the article. Whatever. It's quite clear that this is the direction Jeollanam-do is going in, and that form has again trumped function. As with most aspects of English education in South Korea, I liken this to using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. The students can't read and they can't spontaneously construct a sentence, and both students and teachers really need to get back to basics . . . but at least they'll be responding "It's sunny" to "How are you?" in style now and on a brand new soccer field.

Since Gangjin is throwing money around now, maybe they'll finally get around to paying my overtime, to paying me for my three-week-long winter camp, and to providing the very basic supplies I requested. Probably not. You know, I was a huge spokesman for Gangjin and Jeollanam-do last year, working hard to write up information on Galbijim and Waygook.org, and to provide positive English-language information for the county where there previously was none. Hell, some of the write-ups I did synthesized information that had never even been brought together in Korean. I was pretty eager to stick around, as it's a pleasant county. Sadly, some Koreans really do know how to kill the affection a foreigner feels for his home away from home. And just like a video like "Kicking it in Geumchon" will create more positive publicity for an unremarkable part of unremarkable Paju than any website or promotional campaign could, so too do posts like this and experiences like mine damage what little reputation that county has. After all, who else is writing or reading about Gangjin? I used to love nothing better than touring around the local attractions there, but when I went back in February, sort of on assignment to get some photos of Nammireuksa, by biggest priority was to get in and get out as quickly as possible. Shame.

Good news for Feet Man Seoul: "Photographing Legs is Not Sexual Harassment."

Good news for the bloggers over at Feet Man Seoul. The Korea Times has the story:

Does taking a picture of the legs of a woman in a miniskirt constitute sexual harassment or not? The nation’s top court said, ``No.’’

The Supreme Court acquitted a man of charges that he sexually harassed a young woman by taking a picture of her legs on the subway last December.

I'm just having fun, and have nothing against the blog. I hardly ever visit it because I don't care about what passes for fashion here, but I should spend more time taking advantage of their bilingual columns. Anyway, the real story here isn't taking pictures of pouty, curveless women with bored faces and no backside. The story is one of privacy, permission, and photography. The KT article concludes:

Women rights advocates criticized the ruling. ``No matter which part of the body the man photographed, it is an infringement of human rights if he took the picture without her permission,’’ said Kim Eun-kyung, a director of Korea Women’s Associations United.

``It is regrettable that recent court rulings are lenient to violators of women rights,’’ she added.

The Metropolitician---one of the contributors to FMS, if I'm not mistaken---has a long blog entry on "Korean Photo Paranoia," inspired by a recent news story at the time. From the Hankyoreh on January 12, 2007:

The man, identified as Jo, took a photo with his cell phone camera of a 50-year-old female sitting across him, identified as Choi. Choi then snatched the phone and stopped the bus. She reported the incident to the police and Jo was taken to a police station in Yongsan.

Jo claimed that he just had taken a picture of the upper half of Choi’s body, and had not focused on any specific section of her anatomy. The police investigated Jo for violating a law on sexual violence, but ended up sending the case to the prosecution for lack of evidence. The prosecution found that there were no photos of Choi stored in Jo’s camera, and also could not prove that Jo’s photos had focused on any particular body parts. Jo was cleared of the charges.

However, an official of the National Police Agency warned, "People who take photos of other persons without their permission can be brought to court. It is the same case for those who spread photos [of other people] through the Internet, even if they have taken the pictures with permission. People should not take photos of other persons in public places," advised the official.

The Metropolitician has a few examples of Koreans being displeased with their photo being taken whle they are in public places. He also has a few points gleaned and translated from a photojournalism textbook. An excerpt:

1) According to the 10th and 16th articles of the Korean Constitution, which defines a "right to happiness" and "right to privacy," respectively, as this is expressed in concrete terms in article 32, clause 4 of criminal law, a person entrusted with a picture of someone can't use or reproduce it without one's wishes or according to commercial whims, but "because there are no stipulations for punishments, one can only seek compensatory damages according to clause 750 of civil law," for which you have to show clear and concrete damages to one's person or reputation. That means, you gotta have lost a job, gotten a divorce, or something else o which you can put a dollar (or won) sign.

2) According to the book, since there are almost no actual precedents for seeking damages to "chosangkweon" alone – most of the cases shown in the book that set significant legal precedents were all cases in which individuals' images were used without their permission for commercial purposes – it is "little more than an academic issue."

Well, since the advent of the Internet, "dog poop girl," and the woman in Hongdae who posed in a picture with two white boys and was essentially cyberstalked and threatened, Koreans are worried about their faces in pictures more than ever before.

The funny thing is, pretty much any case that most people chalk up to violations of one's "right to their image" are actually clear violations of their "right to happiness" and/or their "right to privacy." In the case of the woman whose image of her and her poopy pooch were passed all over the Net – along with her home address, telephone number, school, and major – her rights were clearly violated. The same is true of the woman who dared appear in a photograph with foreign vermin.

Teachers certainly know how students feel . . . they'll mug for each other's cell phones, but will often cover each other's faces when a teacher tries to snap a photo. Even a lot of the girls have obscured their faces in their class pictures.

Anyway, not sure if Koreans are as thoughtful about right to privacy when it comes to foreigners and those photos. (I'll leave it up to others to debate whether foreigners actually have that constitutional right in this country.) I do know of some bizarre examples. Most of us know somebody who has unwittingly appeared in an advertisement for their hagwon, whether on a flyer, on a website, or on a giant billboard. Me and some coworkers ended up in an advertisement for a 삼계탕 restaurant a few years back. And a woman in Mokpo was sleeping on a ferry to Jeju one time, and when she woke up she found a Korean couple standing over them putting away their camera.

I guess I'm a little paranoid about having my photo taken by strangers, because I never know where it'll end up. My weirdest experience was last fall at the Chungjangno Festival in Gwangju. There were a few tents set up in a parking lot, displaying old photographs of downtown Gwangju. Because I don't know where else to find old photos of this area, I started snapping a few photographs of the ones hanging there. After I took a shot, I turned to my left to see a Korean guy a few feet away with a huge-lensed camera pointed straight at me. When I turned to him he turned away. I went to another display, took a photo, and when I looked to my side he was there again, taking my photo from a few feet away. I went to another picture and looked over my shoulder to find him turning his camera away from me again. After I snapped another shot I found him again in my face with the camera, so I went over and chased him out of the tent. When I caught up to him I asked him who he was, and he told me he was putting together an art project for his university class. I'm not sure if what he was doing would be considered legal, but I do know it was highly annoying, and I suspect he wouldn't have photographed me had I not been a foreigner showing an interest in Gwangju. It was a street festival after all, and there were thousands of other targets visitors.

Near-vacant campus in Gwangju.

After a failed attempt to visit Gwangyang's Apricot Village, I rounded up the family and headed to Gwangju. First I bought a new camera at Kumho World---Gwangju's scaled-down version of Seoul's Techno Mart---and reminded myself why I hate buying big-ticket items. Sick of sales people walking away when a white guy comes over to the counter, while fawning over a Korean passerby the next second. Found a nice lady, though, willing to talk to my dumb ass and I ended up getting a newer version of my old Casio Exilim, which I had somehow scratched up in Beijing. (135호, if you're looking to throw some business their way.) As you might have seen from some of my other photos, there was a crescent-shaped scratch across the lens, which threw a . . . well, a crescent-shaped scratch into my pictures and gave my shots a kind of a supernatural look. It was kind of amusing when I was viewing pictures I had taken in a local cemetary, but I can assure you it was less amusing when the Holy Spirit crept into every other fucking shot.

Anyway, I did that, and my aimless strolling led me to 카톨릭대교육원, which I think translates to Catholic University Continuing Education Center, but I'm not 100% sure. I've always enjoyed visiting college campuses. To me they represent youth and hope, and Xenu knows I've squandered enough of both. Yonsei University in Seoul has a nice campus, as does Kangwon National University in Chuncheon. Others still have that tinge of romanticism, but aren't as uniform or as well-groomed as those back home.

I'm not sure how this particular campus is related to the main campus of Gwangju Catholic University, actually in Naju. I can tell you that this one is eerily vacant, and more than half the buildings are run-down and used for storage. A thread on Expatkorea about abandoned buildings in Korea reminded me of this campus, and since I was in the neighborhood I walked on over. Some nice blossoms this time of year, and lots of middle-aged people walking around the otherwise disused back half of campus. Anyone interested in having a look should go out exit 2 of 쌍촌역 on Gwangju's subway line. I have a set of 38 pictures on my flickr page.












Two Jindos chained outside.




Awwwwwww!




Okay, actually taken inside the Shinsegye Department Store.

Straight out of Paju: "Kickin it in Geumchon."

Straight out of Geumchon-dong, Paju city. These three men are wasting their talents at the local English Village.



"Drinkin' Cass-uh, drinkin Hite-uh, feelin' all right-uh, drinkin' all night-uh." That shit is hot.

And that's gonna bring in the tourists. Not really sure if the folks in Paju actually want more white people---the English Village brings enough thank you very much---but the video just installed the city in the foreign consciousness in a way that lame English-language websites couldn't. The video started off rocky, but picked up after the first verse. My message to other foreigners is please, please, please don't make a video for your town. Imitation videos area always lame, and bad things seem to happen when foreigners talk about Korea on tape (here and here). I don't to wake up tomorrow to "Poontang in Bundang" (it rhymes when some foreigners say it *grumble* trust me).

Pretty intense stuff for the morning Hit Parade.

Here's a recent video for the KCM song "사랑하니까," featuring actress 김소연. Not sure who else has music videos on in the background in the morning besides me, but this isn't what I really want going through my head at six a.m.

Matthew Sellers and Bill Kapoun: Almost, kind of, a strange coincidence.

Yesterday on Dave's somebody posted a "RIP" message for Bill Kapoun, the teacher who died in Seoul March 8th, and Matthew Sellers. I wasn't familiar with Matthew Sellers so I ran a google search. Turns out he was an English teacher who died under extremely suspicious circumstances in Seoul five years ago. I'm glad I stumbled across his story, for it's one that shouldn't be collectively forgotten in our community. From the Birmingham News, April 20, 2003, via this geocities site:

South Korea has had an increasing anti-American element after an American army truck struck and killed two Korean teenagers last June. South Koreans have also demonstrated against the United States' presence in Iraq and in South Korea.

Sellers told his brothers April 14 that the mugging was the last straw and that he had bought a plane ticket to come home permanently on Saturday, April 19.

But the morning of April 19, he was picked up by police for climbing into the back seat of someone's car. Details about why Sellers was in the car, whose car it was and why police took him into custody have remained unclear because the police officer at the scene has been on vacation since the incident. But Sellers' brother, Oliver Sellers, said he wonders if his brother was being chased or threatened.

Police kept Sellers in their custody for the day, telling the embassy that they had a homeless, mentally ill man in their care. The embassy told the police to take him to the hospital or let him go. Police then took him to the hospital, where hospital workers sedated and restrained him.

Early Sunday hospital staff noted that Sellers' breathing was fast and his pulse was racing. He was sent to a different hospital for blood tests. He died en route to the second hospital.

The Joongang Ilbo ran a long story online on May 24, 2003, that reported Sellers was taken to a number of mental hospitals after climbing into the back of a stranger's car. An excerpt:

It was about 1:45 p.m on April 19, when Mr. Sellers arrived at Eunpyeong hospital. Park Jong-ik, the psychiatrist in charge of Mr. Sellers at the hospital, says, “Mr. Sellers did not have any external injuries. His death seems to have nothing to do with such a thing as anti-American sentiment.” After being injected with sedatives, Mr. Sellers reportedly was tranquilized. Mr. Robinson says that another friend who saw Mr. Sellers lying on the bed in the hospital said that he was sleeping and looked all right.

The next day, at approximately 3 p.m., Dr. Park noticed that Mr. Sellers’s condition was turning unstable. “Mr. Sellers’ vital signs started to dip ― it was something other than a psychiatric symptom. Mr. Sellers started to complain of a breathing problem. We needed to run tests to determine what was happening, which was not possible at this hospital because it specializes in mental problems.” About 5 p.m., Dr. Park transferred Mr. Sellers to Kangbuk Samsung Medical Center, a general hospital in central Seoul. While he was en route to that hospital in an ambulance, at about 5:20 p.m. on April 20, Mr. Sellers’s heart stopped beating.

An autopsy was performed April 22 by the National Institute of Scientific Investigation, and though the final results have not officially been released, it’s known that the cause of death is listed as “unknown.” Choi Yeong-geun, a detective in charge at the Gangnam precinct, says, “One thing’s for sure: He did not have a traumatic injury. The lack of an external wound is a sign that there is no suspicion of murder, which brings the case to the end, when confirmed.”

Ms. Love received word from the U.S. Embassy that her brother was given an injection of a mixture of Valium and Haldol against his will at Eunpyeong hospital. Valium is used to treat mildly anxious patients, as well as to help control epilepsy and alcohol addiction. Haldol, or haloperidol, is a prescription medicine indicated for use in management of psychotic disorders. A spokeswoman at the U.S. Embassy says, “We’ve got preliminary reports of the autopsy, and we’re still working on the case.”

A subsequent Birmingham News article notes that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell was looking into the case, and a May 18, 2003, article summarizes the events of April 19. An excerpt:

Saying he was mentally ill and homeless, the police took him to a psychiatric hospital, where he was restrained and sedated using anti-psychotic drugs. The hospital noted traces of marijuana in a urine sample. The next day, according to hospital records, Sellers had rapid breathing and pulse. En route to another hospital in an ambulance, he died.

On January 25, 2004, someone identifying themselves as Matthew's sister made a comment on the now-defunct War Liberal blog. Here is an excerpt of the update she gave:

My name is Lee Love; I am one of Matthew Sellers' sisters. Please know our family has not stopped seeking answers about our brother's death. I can update a couple of facts-the Institute for Scientific Investigation S. Korea has refused to issue any further details about Matthew's death. We were always told there would be a "final" autopsy pending further tests, now through the US State Department we are told they have been notified we are to consider the initial "preliminary" autopsy final. Cause of death remains unknown. The Koreans did not send his vital organs home for a detailed secondary autopsy. We would like to know what they did with them. Also to clear up the speculation about drugs or alcohol, Matt was found to have a "scant amount of marijuana in his urine" nothing else. No alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines or anything of the like. All the self-inflicted death speculation should stop. He did not cause his own death, the end. I want to tell you there is tangible concern Matthew's death has been downplayed to the point of cover-up by the US and the Koreans.

Our family was required to send $6,000.00 in order for Matthew's body to be sent home for burial, we were informed he would not be released until certain other bills were cleared up. Matthew had some money left in Seoul; here is how the US Embassy decided to disburse it. Matthew?s money paid the costs incurred by the "hospital" that killed him, the transport that took him to Samsung Hospital where they have real doctors, the storage charges for his body ($100.00 a day until the Korean Medical Examiner could perform an autopsy) and the autopsy itself. About that autopsy -- the Koreans insisted it must be performed in accordance with their law when a person dies while arrested and of no apparent reason ? even without family consent or notification. There were other incidentals which Matthew's money was used for. Over $1,200.00 was charged to send Matt's belongings gathered from his apartment by friends, this amounted to a large box and another box with very few contents.

Our State Department is not forthcoming with any information about an investigation into Matthew's death. My brothers have requested a meeting with Alabama Senator Richard Shelby sometime during the month January or February 2004. We want to lay out the facts we have gathered aspect by aspect. Evidence dictates clearly someone knows what happened to Matthew but no one wants to be accountable. The Korean Police say they turned everything over to the US Embassy, the US Embassy say the police are not cooperating -- which one is lying? The Embassy refused to help Matthew when they were called upon repeatedly - by the police, Matt?s friends and Matthew himself.

There's a lot of reading to do on the case (in particular the original Dave's thread and this collection of newspaper articles), and I haven't yet come close to making it through all of it. And there must be more news out there since that January, 2004 update.

Anyway I've posted all of this because, actually, the name Matthew Sellers did look familiar and I knew I had seen it somewhere recently. So I revisited the initial Korea Times article on Bill Kapoun:

Matthew Sellar, a part-time teacher at an elementary school in Seoul, said that the terrible situation could happen to other foreigners as well. ``The fact that William was uninsured is indicative of the larger issue that many foreign English teachers do not have insurance,’’ he said. ``I wish it was easier for foreigners to report illegal activities without fear of being fired, deported, or arrested. I love Korea. I love teaching my students.’’

The name is a little different, but it's almost, kind of, a strange coincidence connecting these two suspicious deaths of Americans in South Korea. Let's hope that, after all of the fundraisers have stopped and the sense of urgency has waned, that the foreign "community" down here again unites to push for a complete investigation of the fire that killed Kapoun and his girlfriend.

Korea Times editorial, "Immigrant Wives" and obscene KT comments.

Here's a bizarre editorial from the Korea Times two days ago on mail-order brides that touches on the recent deaths, unrelated, of two Vietnamese women imported to Korea as wives. One woman was murdered, the other was probably murdered. The anonymous editorial is bizarre in that it's very aggressive in its criticism of Korea's race ideology. Bizarre also in that it couldn't go four lines without a classless remark on America's racist legacy:

One killed herself. Another was beaten to death. A third was divorced after her duty as a surrogate mother was fulfilled.

No, these are not stories about ill-fated black women before slavery was prohibited in the United States.

The English-language press in South Korea is garbage, and I've asked myself time and time and timeandtimeandtime again why the papers seem completely uninterested in improving the quality of, if not their pieces and topics, than at least the grammar, punctuation, or syntax. Korea is, after all, obsessed with how its image is projected to the world, and superficially obsessed with its English ability, and I think its online newspapers are the sources of Korean-related information most turned-to and most-frequently used by overseas English-speakers. More relied upon than, say, Korean food, Korean pop culture, or Korean territorial disputes: Korea's self-appointed messengers.

I guess people can be forgiving of Korean websites' mistakes in English, and can applaud the effort rather than critique thte result. At least they're trying, right? Even if the official site of Korea's national brand is rife with errors, we oughtn't be too critical, right? (I'm being facetious, dumbass.) The same courtesy is, apparently, extended the major newspapers. How else can one excuse the ridiculous punctuation and formatting on the Joongang Ilbo site, the grammatical and spelling errors in Korea Times online articles, or the "what the fuck is this shit" content in the Seoul Times. I'm also curious why it takes so much longer for news to hit the English sources, since there are English writers and English correspondents in-country. And it kills me that slightly-older-than-recent articles on the Korea Herald site are available only through a paid subscription. That happens to newspapers all over the place, I know, but since this is a Korea blog I'mma just mention the Herald.

More damaging, in my opinion, to its reputation than poor journalism and worse editing, is the Korea Times comment section. The vile, racist garbage that is spilled out at the bottom of each article is an embarassment to the paper which condones it. I would skip the paper altogether if it weren't one of the few sources of English-language information available here. If you can stomach it, have a look at what follows the "Immigrant Wives" editorial I linked in the beginning:

dbrodie01 (121.136.115.230) 03-16-2008 08:55
Koreans are the master race? Ha Ha Ha. That must be why you invented so much stuff in your 5000 year history and never lost a war. Go eat a banana you little monkey

. . .

koreansarethemasterrace (76.204.47.14) 03-16-2008 06:14
Also, just have a look at any of the posts from my fellow Hangook brothers, like "fcia", "proudkorean", "ultrakorean", and "nycnamja". You can see how intelligent and classy we Koreans are by their posts. They are polite, refine, civil and never use racist terms or abusive language. I mean, their posts consist of only 4 words which are "dirty white boy", "spic", "jap fucker" and alot of talk bout "america is shit". See how classy we Koreans are?

. . .

koreansarethemasterrace (76.204.47.14) 03-16-2008 06:13
Also, I forgot one last thing. INTELLIGENCE: Look at how intelligent the comments of my fellow Korean and Kyopo brothers are here on Youtube. We Koreans never curse or talk bad about other nations. It's obvious that we can take criticism very well without having to stoop down to the level of non-kors. We never engage in racial attacks and laugh about people from other nations dying in war. We never spam posts and post the same thing over by copying and pasting other people's comments.

. . .

ProudKorean (96.231.154.11) 03-16-2008 01:59
pedro-el-wetback-pero barking like a chihuahua, again - WOOF WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF!! WOOF WOOF WOOF!!! Keep barking until your white master throws you a bone to chew on, b!tch.


pedro (99.132.217.150) 03-16-2008 01:20
PK those are MANIPULATED stats FOOL why don't your LAZY GOOK ASS do some REAL WORK or is it you are too retarded to BYUNG SHIN GA TEUN NOM SHIP SAE GI! Fuckers like you must get theur AIGALEE DAECUH


pedro (99.132.217.150) 03-16-2008 01:15
FYINFORMATION IRISH COFFE I BELIEVE THE LT GOVERNOR WILL TAKE OVER YOU DUMB ASS IDIOT BITCH MOTHERFUCKER DO YOUR RESEARCH YOU BITCK FUCK YOU IRISH GAY COCKSUCKING FAGGOT FUCK ALL YOU EGOTISTIC GOOKS AND MUST BE EXTERMINATED FUCK ALL YOU GOOKS!


pedro (99.132.217.150) 03-16-2008 01:13
irishcoffee YOU NEED TO IP DAP CHU like NYC NANCY! I am from BELize you BYUN TAE BABO GA TEUN SAE GI ALL GOOK MUST BE EXTERMINATED AND RAPED ALL YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN YOU MUST ALL DIE!

Globetrotter (219.251.75.103) 03-15-2008 21:19
At this point, all I got to say is I understand the South Korean Woman now---in fact more better as this subject matter continues to play out. i can understand why a smart Korean Woman want nothoing to do with a sweaty-stinken Korean Man of the Contry-Bumpkin Style.

nycnamja23 (72.17.142.186) 03-15-2008 05:51
shut the fuck up you dirty mexican and whats with ths sellout korean faggot making korean men look bad? oh like white , black and mexican guys dont do the same shit....gimme a fucking break..

Yeah, that goes on for a while. There has been bickering beneath the articles of that site for as long as I can remember comments being there, but I first really noticed the obscenity shortly after the Namdaemun fire. I called attention to the comments in a Dave's thread last month, and quoted some disgusting comments from articles on topics as diverse as Namdaemun, sports, politics, North Korea, plagiarism, and of course foreign English teachers.

I also included the email address of the webmaster, which I will include again should you want to pass along your complaints:

webmaster@koreatimes.co.kr

I sent an email last month saying that comments ought to be blocked from the site. I received no reply, but I did notice that shortly thereafter a number of vulgar comments had been pulled. Pulled from the recent articles, though, and not the older ones, which is why I could easily skim the archives for the examples I quoted on Dave's. You'll see that at the end of each article is a notice from the webmaster saying that obscene comments will not be tolerated, and that repeat offenders will be banned. Some users have disappeared, based on quick glances at some of the articles, but the worst are still around. The comment also includes the line "should problems continue we have no choice but to block all comment postings." The webmaster's comment appeared shortly after the Namdaemun fire---and just before I posted that Dave's thread on February 12---so that filth has been going on for at least a month without any meaningful response.

I'm not a guy who calls for censorship of things I don't like. Hell, I'm not even posting this because my fragile Victorian sensibilities are offended by words like "gook," "jap," "fucker," or "plagiarism." But I think most sensibile people'd agree that the comments beneath each and every Korea Times article have somehow made an unreadable paper much more unreadable. It'd be one thing if this were going on at Occidentalism, a blog that has allowed itself to be destroyed by its users, or any other hole-in-the-wall site. But the KT is one of the major English-language dailies in South Korea, a source many of us both in-country and overseas (grudgingly) rely upon for our Korean news and information. The garbage that goes on beneath the articles trumps the garbage that goes on inside them, and ought to be offensive to its readers and embarassing to its publishers.

And since it's a slow day, and since nobody you asked, here's a picture of a "Vietnamese brides never run away" banner like the one mentioned in the "Immigrant Wives" piece:


From Jeollabuk-do (063 area code), stolen from idontrememberwhere.

* bump * Face-to-face interviews at the embassy?

I put this video on a post back in December, but I wanted to bump it because I don't have anything else to write about it's perversely funny. It's how I imagine those face-to-face interviews at the Korean embassies back home would go, if they ever get implemented.

"동물농장," or "Close-Up Animals with a Wide-Angle Lens"

(Edit, April 5: Sorry, but the video player I had embedded was causing Internet Explorer to crash. I tried to steal them and stick them on youtube, but it didn't work, so instead I've just linked to the videos. You can find a lot more by navering 동물농장. Just be aware that, at least for me, that media player really slows down the computer. Not sure what the problem is.)

I like to watch animal shows on TV here, especially ones like 동물농장, which profiles people's strange pets or their unusual relationships with animals.



Apparently a recurring "character" in some of these is a cute little kid---nicknamed 장군아?---in Icheon who loves animals.

* Here he is feeding some puppies and visiting his grandparents. Lol @ him bowing to the dog.

* Here he is playing with, and drugging, a piglet.

* Here he is with his mother putting clothes on piglets:

* Again with the piglet.

* At the vet's office.

* And, finally, here is 장군아's mother exploiting his fear of pink rubber gloves:

Last week I caught an episode about a sheepdog who doubles as an office assistant. Two clips are available here and here, although none of them show the conclusion, when the employees gave him and some other dogs a bath in the middle of the office. Other quality episodes I recall include a woman raising a bunch of raccoons in her home, a family with their own family of prarie dogs, and an old woman who is obsessed with her Jindo dog "백구."

I think the show is cute and some of the episodes are heartwarming because I'm going through menopause. It's quite clear that the people featured truly love animals, and that provides some balance to the treatment of animals we usually see around here. Strangely, I get the complete opposite reaction whenever I see programs on Korean zoos. Because zoos exist here basically as a day's fun, zookeepers I've seen on the various animal programs appear part of the entertainment industry---playing with the animals, making the animals do tricks, mixing up species to see how they get along---whereas the amateurs profiled on 동물농장 and other similar shows have actually brought animals into their homes and into their lives. I'll leave it to more expert writers lay out how those Korean examples contrast to, say, public figures like Steve Irwin or Jack Hanna (both entertainers, but both involved in academic pursuits as well). Having actually been to animal displays in Korea, I feel confident in saying that playing with animals on talk shows or giving them silly voiceovers has not yet had a huge effect on how people react to zoos.


Stolen from here.

But as always, I need to add a disclaimer, and point out that people at my old place of work suffer from cranio-rectal inversion, too.

Guy in Daejeon murders Vietnamese wife, gets 12 years.

A Korean man in Daejeon got a "relatively heavy punishment" yesterday of 12 years in prison for killing his 19-year-old Vietnamese wife last year. The Korea Times has the story:

The Vietnamese woman, who suffered abuse at the hands of her husband and was impeded by a language barrier, decided to leave for her hometown on July 26, 2007, after one month of married life in Korea. But her intoxicated husband beat her to death.

In the ruling, the court said ``We saw the tragedy in which an older Korean male selected his wife in a matter of minutes then treated her like an imported product.''

Interestingly the Joongang Ilbo today has an article about a Vietnamese mother calling for the investigation of her daughter's death last year. The woman, married to an abusive Korean man, jumped or fell 14-floors to her death on February 6th. The case has been treated as a suicide in media reports, though her mother doesn't agree:

“I want to know exactly why and how she died. She is not the sort of person who would commit suicide,” Huynh said yesterday during a protest in front of the Gyeongsan police station, which is investigating the matter. During the protest, organized by local civic groups, the willowy 46-year-old broke into loud sobs, calling out Tran’s name.

The article is worth a read. Here's another excerpt:

Huynh said she refused to give permission [for cremation], but she did not know that Tran had already been cremated the day before.
Tran’s husband, Ha, was unavailable for comment yesterday. However, according to the local police, he said that he contacted the matchmaker after Tran’s death and was told by the broker that the mother had agreed to the cremation. During the investigation, police said, Ha told them his new wife did not adjust well to her new family and that she slept a lot and did not do her chores. The two, lacking a common language, had no way to communicate.
Just a week after Tran’s arrival in Korea, the couple filed for divorce and a short time later Tran bought a ticket for a flight back to Vietnam. A day later, she plunged to her death from the balcony.
“The circumstantial evidence indicated it was a suicide,” said a senior Gyeongsan police officer who refused to be named. Further forensic examination is impossible since the body was cremated at her husband’s request, he said. “We are still investigating. The case is not closed.”
Little is known about what happened during the six weeks before Tran died. Her diary, written from Jan. 17 to 29, revealed the typical problems in marriages between rural Korean men and women from developing countries.
“My husband slapped me across my face,” Tran wrote, “maybe because I didn’t do the chores the way he taught me. But I still don’t know what he’s talking about.”
The entries were mostly devoted to homesickness.
“I am counting the days before I go back to Vietnam. I miss my mother so much,” another entry reads. The diary ends on Jan. 29, a week before Tran died.

More information on that case is available here, as well as through a Google search.

Collision, spill off Yeosu.

* Update 1: The Chosun Ilbo has the story in English. An excerpt:

Coast guards said the latest oil spill would cause only minor damage since diesel oil evaporates easily. When the collision occurred, winds were not strong, blowing at 4-6 m per second. Waves were also moderate at 0.5 m. Coast guards believe the tanker will not sink. The collision occurred in distant waters and will no great impact on fish farming.

Stolen from the Naver article.

Original post:

Last night an oil tanker collided with a fishing boat 18 kilometers south of one of Yeosu's outlying islands, and caused the release of roughly 50 kiloliters (13,208 gallons) of oil. Yonhap has the story via Naver, and I'm sure English-language updates will come later in the day.

The last major accident off Yeosu happened in December, when two ships collided and 14 sailors went missing. That came about two weeks after the largest oil spill in Korean history.

If the 50 kiloliter, 13,208 gallon number is accurate, that is mercifully smaller than the December spill off Taean county, which released 2.7 million gallons.