Some exception might be taken with using a foreign country's homeless rather than their own, with saying a country has insufficient housing for everyone, or with writing something like "even with our limited land, our government is able to provide sufficient housing for the people." Hell, I'll bet many are just upset because Korea makes Korea look bad, and other countries oughtn't be airing its dirty laundry. Ironically today's lesson in my English textbook has the following passage:
My father says that Koreans are one of the hardest working peoples in the world. And I think it's true. I live in Dallas, and I have some friends from Korea in my neighborhood. Their parents work very hard. They usually start work early in the morning and come back home late at night. And they do their best for their children to have a better education. They know what's important in life.
The not-so-subtle implication is that other cultures don't work for their children and don't know what's important in life. Looking through foreign textbooks is a popular pastime of many government officials and private citizens. Looking through domestic textbooks for similar distortions, though, doesn't inspire the same passion.
9 comments:
There are about a dozen homeless men and beggars and one old homeless lady who live pretty permanently outside the Mokpo Train station. They beg for money, and drink soju and will tell you that they are on the street because they are "crazy man"... I would guess mentally ill.
There was a *family* rumoured to have been living on the top of one of the Shidae apartments back in the day, but I don't know how that would have been possible.
My coteachers were upset by the article, saying it will cause Singaporean children to have a negative impression of Korea. They also took exception---as did the article---to the textbook including homeless as a type of residence. The article gives the impression, apparently, that the book says this is how Koreans live. If you can read the English, though, you'll see it's nothing out of the ordinary. You might take a little exception to the tone, but that certainly shouldn't sound alien to anyone who has read their Korean English books or flipped through books for other subjects.
On top of apartments there's that extra room sticking up. An old coworker told us that apartments would rent these out very cheaply, and that they were popular among college students and bachelors. One day we were drinking on our officetel roof and decided to peek in at the guy living there, since we heard loud music. Turns out it was just the music they pipe into the elevators, and that it was nothing but an electronics shed, or whatever those are called. I guess somebody could take shelter there, since they're often open, but I don't know how you'd do that w/o being noticed.
I showed them the article and hoped to compare it to stuff found in the textbooks our school uses. However, and I don't get this logic, they said that the Korean textbooks were meant for Koreans and are thus of coursed biased in favor of Korea, whereas the Singaporean textbooks were negatively depicting foreign countries.
I should have just skipped it and brought in horoscopes instead.
Nice..
and about six hours later it shows up on Marmot... they might be fans of yours? ;-p
and about six hours later it shows up on Marmot... they might be fans of yours? ;-p
Well, yes, I suppose we are. I also happened to read Naver.com.
I had the link sent to me via Facebook, so Michael scooped us all.
Yeah! Many hours wasted as a government employee finally pays off!
If you had a site I'd link it every time I stole something from you. Are you going to make one for the store?
My korean's not good enough to sit down and read a news article... but correct me if I'm wrong... Where does the writing state the word "KOREA" in the homeless part?
I'm confused as to why Koreans feel this was a jab at them? Homeless people look equally shabby everywhere in the world.
And on a side note, Singapore DOES have a good record of taking care of its citizens and providing above-average housing, despite the age of many of it's buildings...
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