Or is that a dok-umentary? HAHAHA! Not really sure what the 98-minute film is about. Dokdo I guess. We read about the documentary, titled Sorry Dokdo, two weeks ago when the Korea Times profiled one of the men behind it, singer Kim Jong-hoon. The article contained a lot of bizarre quotations perhaps a little less bizarre when you consider the source.
"Even for me, the Dokdo issue comes as a rather furious and extreme issue. But the movie is calm and peaceful. There were even some tear jerking moments for me at the end," he said.
. . .
"We don't have much materials or relevant documents regarding this issue"
. . .
"As a singer, my ultimate dream is to hold a big festival at Dokdo. It will be a natural way to remind the place to even foreigners. Where is the festival being held? At Dokdo. Where is that? In the East Sea? And where is that? In Korea," he added.
. . .
"We tend to forget too fast. It's been a while since the Dokdo issue was the main news in our conversations, and I think this is the perfect time to bring such a film to the public," he said.
Anyway, I'm sure it's an awesome. You can read more on The Marmot's Hole thread that dram_man will post roughly an hour after this one goes up.
** 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.
** 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?
** 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 Poopernoticed 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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 Timesran 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).
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.
The Sarah Connor version of "Under My Skin" came out August 1st, the Korean version in September, though Wikipedia says that both Sarah Connor and the Korean boyband Dong Bang Shin Gi had bought and recorded the single independently of one another.
Earlier we learned that the ubiquitous "One More Time" was actually a remake, and many Koreans are surprised to learn that the 2005 hit "Maria" is a Blondie cover. A couple of years ago Lee Hyori got in trouble for ripping off Britney Spears' "Do Something" for her "Get ya." Most people from one continent don't follow the trends of another---be it music or movies or something else---so there's usually no damage to the time-space continuum. Just some embarrassment when one recognizes the other.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This isn't new at all, but I thought it was neat. Here's a video of a genius chimpanzee in Japan who makes ramen. I don't mean boils water and pours it into the cup and waits three minutes, I mean he actually makes ramen.
The chimp's name is Pan-kun, and is apparently pretty big in Japan. On Christmas I linked to the video of him and his new popcorn maker. Here's a great one of him walking five dogs on the way to the bakery to pick up his birthday cake. And in the video below he goes and buys a train ticket. The way he watches what others around him when he gets confused is a good lesson in adaptation we can all use sometimes.
Korea has similar animal programs, and some of them can be quite objectionable. Reading up on this program in Japan it looks like it's along the same lines: mixing species to see what they do, forcing animals to do human stuff for entertainment, putting them in unfamiliar and perhaps stressful situations, and stuff like that. Though this particular video, for example, is no longer available, the comments reveal that in the episode apparently the trainer abandoned Pan-kun while on a picnic and went to spend time with another of the zoo's chimpanzees, an episode culminating in a fight between the two. True we can't see the video, but I know how agitated my dog used to get when family members would enter and exit the house, so I suspect the chimp would be legitimately bothered. For the record the Japanese chimpanzee programs aren't without critics, as this article and even those above comments reveal, and apparently Pan-kun and James, his dog friend, have been taken off TV and put back in a zoo.
Some of the Korean shows are interesting and reveal people with a true love for animals. Other times the show can be tough to watch, especially when the animals' lives are in danger and you hear the "ooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOO!" of the crowd in the background. Regardless, Pan-kun seems really remarkable, and I suspect he would find these episodes more enriching than spending his days locked in some tiny cell.
Now as for the antics of "foreign talent" you see on Japanese TV . . . that's a topic for another day.
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.
From the Joongang Ilbo, a photo of a charity drive last week.
Boys and girls, here's a trick of the blogging trade. When you see an interesting picture in one of the English papers here, run a search in Korean and you'll get, like, ten more. For when a link just won't do.
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.
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.
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.
"Why are there so many different Korean churches here?" Sumbad asked as the evening rain beat against the wooden door. "Even if there are only five houses in the mountains, the Koreans will build a church there. Sometimes they put up a church in a small village where a church already exists. Why can't they join together and form one church?"
Korea’s indefatigable missionaries, an estimated 17,000 of which have fanned out across the world to spread Christianity, have found Mindoro. Now they are leaving a trail of angry and increasingly frustrated indigenous people, known collectively as the Mangyan, in the wake of their fervent missionary activities. They have engaged in a feverish orgy of church-building, sometimes even in places where the churches sit empty. Secular and spiritual tribal leaders across the island, the seventh largest in the Philippines, accuse the multitude of Korean organizations here of causing tension and division. Inadvertently or not, they subvert traditional customs and laws and waste money building churches in remote corners of the island, the leaders say.
In their defense, Korean missionary groups say they are only trying to help the Mangyan people by teaching the Bible, but many NGOs, academics and even some officials in Philippine government are calling on the missionaries to pay more respect to the indigenous culture.
That article is part one of a two-parter; here's the second half. The reason the article caught my eye is because one such church was built with funding from Gwangju's Sunrise Church.
The antics of Korean missionaries and evangalists last made big news in 2007, when 23 of them were kidnapped---and two killed---while illegally in Afghanistan trying to convert the masses. I've always been perplexed with the eagerness Koreans have gobbled up Christianity, considering it was introduced to civilize their undeveloped minds, and felt a little embarrassed by the degree of cultural imperialism that has taken over South Korea, from the fashion to the language to the religion. We're certainly reminded of it a lot, anyway. However it's hard to keep up much sympathy when you consider the zeal with which some church members turn right around and evangelize to brown people.
Korean Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Yu In-chon and his Chinese and Japanese counterparts Cai Wu and Tamotsu Aoki, respectively, adopted the Jeju Declaration in a meeting at the Jeju International Convention Center.
The meeting was designed to seek ways of promoting cultural relations under the theme of ``Intensifying Cooperation in Mutual Cultural Exchange among Korea, China and Japan'' during a three-day meeting, which kicked off Tuesday.
The ministers agreed to make efforts to upgrade human and property exchanges, promote cultural heritage and support the BeSeTo Theater Festival, engaging representatives of the three East Asian countries to establish a regional cultural community.
They also decided to expand youth exchanges via the Internet and beef up the protection of intellectual property rights.
Probably should have pinky-sworn not to cancel these youth exchanges anytime a territorial dispute arises, as happened in Cheongju last year when the city cancelled the exchange student program with a Japanese city over some Liancourt Rocks crap. Unrelated, but the Minister of Sports, Culture, and Tourism---pretty big umbrella there---Yu made me lol a lil' with this photograph, apparently encouraging people to stop buying DVDs and to simply copy them.
Spokesman Aaron Tarver said the embassy received the package Wednesday, and a sample of the powder was being tested. Tarver said no one was reported sickened.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the substance was not anthrax nor the deadly poison ricin — both of which have been used in mail attacks in the U.S. Additional tests are being conducted with results expected in the next few days.
Last week, the FBI said eight U.S. embassies in Europe received letters containing a white powder in what the agency called a hoax. It said governors' offices in more than 40 U.S. states had received similar letters recently.
That last paragraph is especially alarming, hoaxes or not.
** Japan has animal shows of its own, including this one of a chimpanzee who gets a popcorn maker for Christmas. Yes, very 카와이.
** If you've ever taught kindergarten here and have tried to find videos to childrens' songs on Naver or Yahoo, you know that 90% of what's on there is garbage. Here's them getting "Jingle Bells" wrong.
** The "Proposal Wall" along Cheonggyecheon in Seoul has become a popular spot for proposals. More information on the official website; yes, there's an official website.
** A piece in the Korea Times asks "Is Korea Homogenous Country?" Some good opinions there, some decidedly not good. Equally important as asking about Korea's increasingly heterogeneous future is reflecting on the degree to which Korea may or may not have been heterogeneous in the past.
Children are still taught at school that all Koreans are of the same ancestry. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has no immediate plans to completely erase the term ``homogeneous Korean people,'' thought it has toned down the parts emphasizing it.
``It's still a bit too early to remove the term homogenous people,'' said Min Byung-kwan, the ministry director in charge of textbooks.
The ministry says it is inevitable to maintain the term to explain the reasons why the two Koreas should be reunified. ``We will correct expressions against immigrants in textbooks, but when it comes to reunification, we need to emphasize that Korean people share the same blood,'' said Kim Yoon-ki, the ministry researcher.
** Here's a ridiculous amount of cleavage from somebody in a Christmas-themed outfit. Living in Korea makes me more aware of the over-the-top sexuality in advertising and in the media. I suppose because breast implants, bug eyes, and other mimics of Western trappings look so out of place on Korean women as to draw attention to their absurdity.
** This church in Gwangju is perhaps a little confused, as Jesus wasn't crucified on Christmas. A different angle.
** Figure skater Kim Yuna was voted the Korea Times' person of the year. Really? Nothing else happened? Gusts of Popular Feelinghas more on how local media is manipulating the competition between Kim and Japan's Asada Mao into a nationalistic rivalry.
** In Japan people have come to believe that Kentucky Fried Chicken is the traditional Western Christmas dinner, and people will wait in line for hours for it on Christmas Day.
** Merry Christmas from Haenam county's 땅끝, or "Land's End," the southernmost point on peninsular South Korea.
Bianca Mobley, a 19-year-old American panelist for KBS TV talk show “Global Beauties Chat,” has asked police to punish Internet users who have downloaded two pictures from her homepage without permission, uploaded them to other sites with defamatory comments written on them.
In one picture, Mobley is seen hugging a man and in the other she is posing as if she is caressing the breasts of another woman. Some internet users uploaded these pictures on other sites and wrote messages calling her “promiscuous,” said the police.
* Update: More from the Korea Times. People should be punished for hacking into an email, or into a private blog or website. Not really sure what the standard punishment is in those cases. However, in spite of how malicious Korean netizens can be---I doubt they just called her "promiscuous"---I don't think we should get into punishing internet users for leaving mean comments on websites.
And, in line with the comment I left on this post, I think it's a good idea for foreigners here to be careful with what pictures the post of themselves on the internet. In this case Bianca's photos were scandalous because *gasp* she was hugging a man. In another case a teacher put photos of himself getting friendly with Korean girls at a local bar and had his picture passed around the local media. And an ugly episode of xenophobia began a few years ago by racy photos of white men and Korean women at a local club. We already know many Koreans consider foreigners promiscuous to begin with, and that some netizens are gunning for us anyway. It doesn't take much sleuthing for an unhappy student or a disgruntled netizen to dig up a Facebook or Myspace page, or to find a blog entry detailing somebody's Friday night, and it takes little to get the xenophobic crowd wound up. So keep those profiles private, and save the party pics for emails, not for blogs.
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.
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.
The Korea Association for Animal Protection filed the petition Monday against the producer of the program ``Starking,'' the show host Kang Ho-dong, and the owner of the Jindo dog, for forcing the dog to walk on two tightropes.
``The people had the dog walk on the ropes 2.5 meters above the ground without any safety devices in the program aired Saturday. The dog lost his footing on the ropes and almost fell, but people just laughed and nobody worried about it. They also made the dog climb up a five-meter-high ladder,'' the group said in the complaint.
``We could see the dog was in fear. Dogs have acrophobia ㅡ they do not like heights. Forcing the dog to walk on tightropes causes huge fear and stress to it, like forcing a person who fears roller coaster rides to ride one,'' it said.
Some people have faces you just want to punch. Kang Ho-dong is one of those people.
Anybody can sue anybody, so nothing noteworthy in that, but I do wonder if this animal protection group (한국동물보호연합) will go after other shows like "Animal Farm" and "Zoo Zoo Club," programs that delight in tormenting animals for the audience's pleasure. One particular episode had a chimpanzee living together with a bunch of other animals, all wandering around uncaged. That's bad enough considering the chimp is strong enough to rip a terrier or a cockatoo in half if it wanted to. But the main storyline of the program wasn't watching a chimp chase a bird, it was that it was addicted to cigarettes. It would eat them rather than smoke them, but seveal times you'd see the owner leave a pack out for it, "accidentally," and the chimp would tear into them. It was certainly a long day for the man in charge of the "ooooooooooo" button.
Anyway, worth pointing out that Jindo dogs are a national cultural property and sort of hail from Jeollanam-do's Jindo island. People talk them up a lot, but I'll leave it up to you to figure out to what degree they're actually revered in practice.
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.
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.
** 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.
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.
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.
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.
Hines Ward, the Korean-American NFL player for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and his mom, Kim Young-hee, have given the green light to a movie about their life.
Without Kim’s support, few believe Ward would have become the sports star he is today. To earn a living, Kim had to work 16 hours a day working as a grocery clerk and maid.
The film is provisionally called “My Mother.” CY Film said on Monday that the two gave permission for the film to be made last summer.
As we well remember Ward was heralded as a national hero after being named MVP of Super Bowl 40. He came to be cast in the media as a symbol of shifting attitudes toward biracial children, though the way I recall it people were proud of him more for being Korean than for being an agent of social change. In fact by shifting attention to the achievements of his mother---very noble as they are---he represented a Korean success story rather than a reminder that he literally didn't become Korean until earning the Super Bowl MVP.
More here and here in Korean, which says most of the film will be shot in the US and will be produced by James Kang, the guy who did the cringeworthy D-War. I wonder if the film will be mostly in English. I also wonder how often he'll be called "Black Pearl."
Transgender singer and actress Harisu (하리수) will be in advertisements for UFT brand sanitary napkins. Some, um, interesting wording in the aritcle from the Chosun Ilbo:
Up till now, male stars like Go Su and Gam U-seong have appeared in sanitary napkin ads, but never has a transgender individual appeared in an ad for such a feminine product. The Taiwanese firm UFT really tried hard to cast Harisu in its ads. In fact, when the singer first learned what the company wanted her to market, she was quite hesitant to agree to the project.
UFT, however, explained that the sanitary pads are a cutting-edge product that not only gives women that spring-fresh feeling, but also prevents menstrual cramps. Hearing this, the singer eventually accepted the offer.
Update: I just double-checked and this article is four years old. My bad. My guess is somebody on soompi or some other messageboard recently linked to it, thus putting it on the list of most-viewed articles.
Update 2: I'm sorry, this is really distasteful, but I had a little lol at what article ranks right below this one on the list of most-viewed stories.
Based on what I've read about skiing in Korea---and on what I can deduce from how people walk and drive here---skiing seems like it'd be an absolute nightmare. People turning, swerving, and stopping with no regard for anything going on around them. See, just like the sidewalks and the highways. Here's a case of a woman found 50% responsible for a collision on the slopes after a snowboarder ran into her and broke her leg.
``Lee had to be more observant to prevent the collision but failed to see Cho, and this made the accident more serious. She is 50 percent responsible for the injury,'' [the Seoul court] said, ordering Cho to pay 84 million won in compensation.
Korea handles automobile accidents according to an odd “blame-sharing” concept whereby both parties are always deemed to have some fault in the accident. The usual apportionment is 60-40. What this means is that the driver who caused the accident bears 60% of the responsibility (and therefore cost), and the driver who simply got crashed into gets stuck with 40% of the responsibility on some cockamamie theory that had he not been operating a motor vehicle he would not have gotten into the accident. So the 60% driver pays 60% of the damages incurred by the driver he struck, but receives from the driver he struck an offsetting payment of 40% of the 60% driver’s damages.
All the more reason not to get behind the wheel here. That and the "you'll probably get killed" thing.
One of the more racist pieces I've read in the papers.
If we are so concerned about the welfare of overseas adopted Koreans and the low level of Korea's birthrate, we should refrain from sending our babies to Western countries as they could suffer from discrimination, racism, incurable psychological trauma and a lifelong crisis of identity. Even though, on their part, many adoptive parents love their Korean children as their own, the adoptees grow up in a culture that is very different to their birth culture, and invariably develop a mentality that is foreign to Korea.
When Korean adoptees came of age, their yearning for their biological home becomes increasingly intense, moving them eventually to find something that their hearts are forever seeking. They turn their eyes to their native country, and set out to locate something that, for the first time in their lives, will make them feel whole.
The word ``mother" contains a mixture of spiritual longing and warm nurturing images, which compel humans to seek the roots of their existence. Therefore, it is inevitable that overseas Korean adoptees will have a deep desire to learn as much as they can about their cultural heritage. It is for this reason that they return to their birthplace, not only to find their natal home, but to discover their own identity and their place in the world.
An advertisement for Hallensteins was screened on TV One, TV2 and TV 3. It depicted an incident, in what appeared to be an auditorium and which involved a large number of smartly dressed Asian men, wearing suits. Some of the men wore jackets and some wore shirtsleeves. For no obvious reason, groups of men started to behave aggressively toward each other, pulling at each other's clothes and throwing punches. The graphics state, "Business Shirts 2 for $50 – Hallensteins".
The gist of the ad being you never know when you'll need a back-up shirt. The complaint continues.
The Embassy believes that the advertisement breached Rule No. 5 in the Advertising Code of Ethics and Basic Principle No. 3 of the Revised Code for People in Advertising. It depicted Korean politics and people in a negative fashion and was therefore offensive to the Korean community in New Zealand. It also believes that scenes of a country’s political conflict should not be used for commercial purposes.
The complaint was not upheld, and the blog comes to this astute conclusion:
If you stopped acting like asshats, people wouldn’t laugh at you for acting like asshats.
Go read the rest of the entry for more.
Still no sign of the advertisement online, though searches did bring up a few mentions on Korean websites and the above scan from a page about creative advertising.
That's subjective, but I think the new cultural center they're going to build looks pretty neat.
Construction will start in March and the building is scheduled to be completed in June, 2010. It's going up on and around the site of the old Express Bus Terminal, which closed in August.
Other projects in the city include the new Suncheon Station going up beside the current one, Jorye Lake Park (below) being built next to VIPS around an old reservoir, the Suncheon Eco Valley development project, and the transformation of the city's lengthy stretch of unused train tracks into bike trails and parks.
The heated debate about whether a Samsung car commercial is sexist is a nice seque into this. Former college volleyball star Han Ji-yeon (한지연) has some new photos out for some reason or other. Judging from her past work I'm not sure that's all that's new about her.
Wow, with the subtlety and understatement usually reserved for actresses on CSI and House. Those two pictures I posted might not be safe for work, so be careful.
The government will introduce a state-certified English proficiency test from 2012 to improve practical English skills of students and eventually replace TOEFL and other foreign exam material.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced this and other measures to help reduce the amount of money people spend on private cram schools and language institutes.
The new test, tentatively named the State English Aptitude Test, will be modeled on Japan's Eiken English test, which has earned international recognition.
``We believe as long as we can develop a quality test, many overseas schools will accept it,'' Education Minister Ahn Byong-man said Thursday.
If you will it to be so.
The thing is, as with the on-again off-again plans to conduct classes entirely in English, this new test with its emphasis on "practical English" goes against the quote-unquote skill set of the current generation of Korean English teachers, who were trained to teach exclusively to standardized tests. Why are Korean teachers by-and-large so against teaching English and other subjects in English? Because neither the teachers nor the students can handle that, that's why. Moreover, nobody wants to lose their job to "lecturers" and, let's be honest, few really want foreigners in the schools anyway.
The Eiken is accepted at 290 universities in North America, according to Wikipedia, though only six of those schools are in Canada. Browsing the list of institutions that recognize it I see that they're community colleges or lower-tier public and private schools, and in Pennsylvania's case none of the big names like Pitt, Penn State, UPenn, Allegheny, Grove City, Carnegie Mellon, Temple, or even my alma mater accept it. The listed schools are perfectly fine institutions that will provide a foreign student with a valuable study-abroad experience---or an American degree to augment a resume---and probably save plenty of unassuming Japanese students the headache of trying to cram for an inappropriately difficult exam. But the TOEFL, on the other hand, is the most-used test of English proficiency in the world and is necessary for the top public and private schools in the country. It's not a good idea to become even more localized when the purpose of taking the test in the first place is to study internationally.
But wait, this is where the article is murky. Is the Korean test actually designed for international purposes, or to serve the domestic functions now handled by the TOEFL? The Eiken, for example, has been around since 1963 but wasn't recognized by an overseas institution for admission until 2003. If the test serves merely domestic purposes, why wait until now to create one?
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, or think that a "practical English" exam will be any better than what's around now. And are we really ready to accept Korea's own definition of "good at English" as dictated by a domestic exam? I mean, we see how much teachers struggle with the language, and that's as much an indictment of their training as it is their attitude. And I've just finished doing some recording work for one of the teachers at school, reading aloud from a TEPS prep book which had grammatical errors in nearly every passage. Pity the student who can't pick them out and who takes the book's word for it. Why wouldn't s/he?
Anyway, the Eiken has some sample tests online here. One is the highest level, but it's pretty easy, considerably more so than the CSAT Korean high school students took last month.
From the Korea Timesarticle talking about the big parliment brawl yesterday comes this quotation from Park Byeong-seuk (sic, 박병석), chief policy maker for the Democratic Party (민주당).
Rep. Park Byeong-seug, DP chief policymaker, said shortly before the committee's approval of the motion that his party would fight against the GNP in collaboration with the general public.
``We now realize that we are unable to represent the voices of working- and middle-class citizens properly in the legislature where all decisions are made based on votes,'' Park said.
That picture of him isn't from yesterday but rather from a different scuffle in 2007.
The Lotte Department Store in Seoul sprays artificial snow at intervals throughout the day. The Korea Times ran a similar picture last night
with an interesting caption.
Citizens passing by Lotte Department Store in central Seoul enjoy sudden “snow” in the middle of a sunny day, Thursday. The store decided to provide artificial snow 10 times a day for five minutes spontaneously to “cheer up people suffering from the global economic downturn.”
LOL. Part of the charm of snow is that it doesn't happen all the time, and when it does it's special. Well, it doesn't happen much unless you're from a country with four distinct seasons like the United States. The people who live in an area with nice weather like Pittsburgh aren't touched by this kind of thing but Koreans can be impressed.
They have enough money. As per a note on the Facebook wall from the man in Seoul handling donations to the South Korean account.
Just a note to say PLEASE STOP DONATING! The family has been really blessed and they do not need any more donations. I see some people are holding special fund raising nights but the family has assured me that all their costs have been covered and that they are deciding what to do with the extra money they will have left after they have paid all their costs. I do not know what that amount will be yet and neither does the family.
If you still have any donations to make please pay it into the families bank account in South Africa and NOT into my account in Korea.Iif you have raised money and you feel you want to use it for a good cause like a fund for foreigners or for needy people or whatever please feel free to do that. If you really feel the money is for the family then pay it into their account
THANKS AGAIN to everyone who had an open heart. You were and are still amazing. ALL OF YOU!!
There's talk of setting up a fund to pool money together and provide quicker help to foreigners who need it in emergency situations like this. I'll keep you posted.
The US government agency has labelled the Sea of Japan as the "East Sea" on maps on describing Korea's geography. According to a recent survey, 95% of Koreans believe the water between Korea and Japan should be called the "East Sea." The thing about this issue is that the ridiculousness of one side drags everyone else down, too. I've got half a mind to write some letters asking what the hell people in Washington are doing calling it the "East Sea," but that would make me just as loony as VANK, the online crusaders behind all of this. Hell, I think I've got just as many posts about Dokdo as your average VANKer.
Allow me to plagiarize myself a bit regarding the East Sea. I object to naming the Sea of Japan the "East Sea." The name is 동해, or East Sea, in Korean and that's perfectly acceptable. Nobody is suggesting it be called 일본해. However, the accepted English name is Sea of Japan, and it's arrogant and inappropriate to dictate the rules of another language. Moreover, and what realy induces eye rolls and forehead slaps is that people are advocating replacing the Sea of Japan because it supposedly reflects Japanese imperialism and is a product of, so they say, aggressive lobbying by Japanese politicians. The alternate name suggested, though, is even more disgustingly ethnocentric and nationalistic because the sea is, after all, to the immediate east of Korea and onlyKorea. Here I would write "just call it the East Asian Sea and let's move on," but you see how I view Korea's whining in isolation, and am no longer willing to see the merits of any of its historical claims.
And it's not simply "whining," not just the words of a humble people looking to redeem themselves a half century after a 35-year occupation, the noble protests of a smaller country trying to stand up for itself between two larger Asian powers. What is clear to people who look at what Korea has to say on these issues is that Korea is being the aggressor by constantly going after foreign languages and foreign communities. Nobody likes being told to rethink their language, certainly not by a foreign country who looks more like a radical fringe group when you look at the sum of its wacky protest culture. The East Sea is, after all, east of Korea, making the new name just as biased as the old one.
The article I just cited isn't clear on how sweeping this change will be, but does say the agency will use "Sea of Japan" for items referring to Japanese geography. As The Marmot's Holehas found, it still reads "Sea of Japan" for the page on the Japanese language. That indicates the name change was more one of placation than of surrender, since ultimately nothing has changed. However, providing this small bit of ammunition will only embolden VANK more as they seek to have the entire world cater to the whims of Korean nationalists.
VANK Chairman Park Gi-tae said ``this new labeling carries a lot of meaning. The National Virtual Translation Center also consults 16 U.S. departments and agencies including the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and also the U.S. Navy." Currently, the Central Intelligence Agency continues to use the ``Sea of Japan" label for its official maps.
Park said ``this is the first time that that a U.S. government entity has used the `East Sea' label by itself on an official map."
This change could lead to a wider use of the ``East Sea" label, not just within the U.S. government but also in other areas as well, including various cultural, economic and social sectors, according to the VANK chairman.
``When our group requests popular Web sites overseas to stop using the `Sea of Japan' label when referring to waters between South Korea and Japan, they often ask us for examples used by U.S. government agencies. This new change will boost the publicity campaign to start using the term `East Sea' around the world," he said.
But like I said up there, most "foreigners"---that is, non-Koreans---have no interest whatsoever in this, and will just view Korean lobbying as ugly aggression characteristic of their internet culture and their stereotypical temperment, and will sympathize with the other side just for the sake of disagreeing with Koreans.
*Sigh* But what I found amusing about all this is that they misspelled every other place on the map---Mokp'o, Kwangju, Yosu, and so on.
Those spellings are consistent with the McCune-Reischauer system of romanization, used officially in South Korea until 2000, when it was replaced with the Revised Romanization. Neither is particularly accurate for representing the sounds for English speakers, but it's funny to me that with all the fuss about the names of some rocks and some water, they allow people to get everything else wrong.
Violence erupted between opposing parties in the South Korean Parliament today as they met to discuss the ratification of the KORUS Free Trade Agreement.
Determined to ratify the controversial South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) before the end of this year, the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) physically barred opposition lawmakers from a committee room and put the motion before parliament. The trade deal has been sitting idle in the legislatures of the two countries since June last year.
"We have managed today to pave the way for this critical deal," GNP floor leader Hong Joon-pyo said. "It will be ratified by the end of the year. There will be no further delay."
Scores of lawmakers from the largest opposition Democratic Party and the minority Democratic Labor Party scuffled for hours with security officials, who had been guarding the hall since Wednesday.
"No FTA for the country!" "No dictatorship in the parliament!" opposition legislators called out, shaking their fists in the air at the National Assembly.
As security officials, mobilized by President Lee Myung-bak's GNP, continued to bar them from entering the committee room, some lawmakers used hammers and chisels to tear the back door down. They still could not enter, however, as a fire extinguisher blast broke up the scuffling. No one was seriously hurt.
Some pictures from today's festivities.
LOL, 폐문.
Update: I couldn't help but post more of these dignified men and women. I don't really know what to say except, yeah, I guess is where the well-known impression that Koreans are hot-tempered comes from, and we hardly needed any more evidence for their flair for the dramatic. Geez, you'd think somebody cheated at soccer or something.
Penguins dressed like Santa at Everland, the amusement park in Yongin that has chosen to ignore that penguins are in fact from the South Pole. Another side-effect of Koreans divorcing Christmas from any meaningful context whatsoever.
HT to ROK Drop and to the TV at my gym. Those penguins may be cute, but are no match for this one:
Take note, Chosun Ilbo. There are two or three weeks of classes between the final exam and the end of the semester, and for me that's a chance to break away from the textbook and basically do whatever I want. It's a little intimidating, but waygook.org has a good selection of lessons on a variety of topics and of varying degrees of complexity. For some classes I've been doing an activity that teaches the students about the Korean flag in English. The final element of the lesson is to pretend that they are the new president of a unified Korea and design a flag for the new nation. I got this one last week.
When I, um, talked to him about it he modified it to this.
Unique sentiments in that he was only out of about two hundred students who opted for the anti-Japan angle, while others did some variation of the Taegeukgi or used symbols of peace. And I have to give him credit for actually remembering to draw Jeju; most of our young patriots made the Liancourt Rocks the size of Iceland while forgetting the country's largest island. I think he loses points for implying Tsushima is Korean territory, as some excitableKoreans do. Anytime you have "Dokdo is our land!" banners you'll invariably find "Daema-do is our land!" nearby.
But we know it takes very little to get students' going in the anti-Japan direction. You'll remember a couple of years ago when students in Incheon were encouraged to create anti-Japan posters by their middle school teacher, and then had them displayed in local subway stations (here and here).
Hell, their politicians aren't much better. Here are some politicians participating in a Korea-Japan year of friendship.
That got me to thinking about what flag I'd design for the US should I need to irritate our northern neighbors. I don't know what I'd draw, but I guess it'd have to incorporate the Carolina Hurricanes somehow.
The Japanese government is increasing its cash bonus for couples who have children, with the biggest payment thus far coming for children born in October, 2009.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided to raise the lump-sum payment for childbirth and child rearing from the current 350,000 yen to 420,000 yen from October 2009, it was learned.
The plan was submitted to a meeting of the Social Security Council, an advisory body to the ministry, on Friday.
As a decision to increase the payment from 350,000 yen to 380,000 yen from January 2009 has already been made, the additional sum will be 40,000 yen.
From the Yomiuri Shimbun via Japan Probe. Like Japan, South Korea is a small, crowded country---roughly the same size as Ohio but with five times the population density. And like Japan, South Korea also offers incentives to couples doing their part to stop the falling birthrate, which in Korea's case is the lowest in the world.
Fewer Koreans are going abroad these days, owing to the economy.
The Ministry of Justice said Wednesday that some 730-thousand Koreans left the country for overseas trips in November, down about 33 percent from a year earlier, marking the first decline since 2003 when the SARS epidemic hit the region.
The number of inbound foreign visitors increased 3% due in large part to the Japanese. According to a Korea Heraldarticle:
The ratio of Koreans to Japanese on flights between Incheon and Narita has also been reversed from a year ago to 21-79. Japanese passengers' reservation rate for this month and January rose 35 percent and 26 percent, respectively, year-on-year, according to Korean Air.
This afternoon a lion killed a tiger at the Jeonju Zoo in Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do. The six-year-old female tiger "Hobi" found its way into the adjacent male lion's habitat during feeding time and was killed by a bite to the throat. HT to East Windup Chronicle, who says that according to another article the two animals usually got along.
Apologies for the picture above. If it's too graphic for you, how about looking at this one from Sports Kahn instead.
I'll be curious what, if anything, the English-language media adds to the story. If you watch the animal shows on TV you'll often see zookeepers allowing different species to get too close to each other, sometimes mixing them to see what they'll do for the camera. Take a look at this picture of the side-by-side exhibits and you'll see just how inappropriately close they were. The lion exhibit is on the left, the tiger exhibit on the right.
In one of the few news stories out of South Korea to get coverage internationally, actress Ok So-ri was given a suspended sentence for having extramarital sex with another man without being paid for it. Ok was having sex with a foreigner while married to entertainer Park Chul, an act illegal because she wasn't doing it at a massage parlor and wasn't earning any money from it.
It has been more than 50 years since the adultery law was introduced to Korea to protect women from a male-dominated society.
An article on the topic of adultery from 2002 looks more into the idea of "protection," and says some womens' groups say that criminalized adultery and the threat of prosecution actually works to keep families together, or, failing that, provides women with a safety net in the case of divorce.
The Constitutional Court has decided that the law is constitutional, even while noting the unfavorable side effect of abuse of the adultery law as a coercive tool and the worldwide trend to abolish adultery laws. The court recommended a sincere discussion on the issue.
According to a recent report by the Prosecutors Office, 60 percent of the 11,000 adultery charges filed are subsequently dropped -- often because the adulterer and his spouse have reached a settlement. The criminal justice system, in other words, is being abused as a lever for producing cash settlements.
. . .
Women's rights groups defend such uses of the law. Yang Jung-ja, chairwoman of the Korea Family Legal Service Center, asserts that suing for adultery is one of the few means at a woman's disposal to secure a solid living after divorce.
Adultery is losing its grip as a crime taken seriously by the criminal justice system, says Cho Kwang-hee, an attorney. In 1984, 95 percent of those indicted for the crime were detained. In 1998, that figure had fallen to 66 percent. Court judgments show that while the number of persons punished for adultery has remained about the same -- 28 percent of cases in 1984, 27 percent in 1998 -- those given suspended sentences have increased in the same period from 11 percent to 34 percent.
Many women rely on the adultery laws to return their husbands home. But analysts note that this too is often a makeshift solution. A woman in her mid-50s forgave and dropped her lawsuit five years ago, only to find that her husband strayed again. She has decided to part for good.
This blog entry has some second-hand information about what happens when one spouse accusses the other of adultery, but I have no idea how factual it is. But I'll quote some anyway.
Here's the deal: if a married person (in Korea this is usually a man) has an affair and is caught then the both of them can go to jail for four (if a high-priced lawyer is used) to six (if not) months. Not only that, but as soon as the adultery charges are laid divorce preceedings begin and if found guilty the couple are automatically divorced at the end of the trial. Many younger folk are up in arms about this: they claim that the punishment is too harsh. I figure that jail time for adultery is a little steep, too. Wouldn't it be better to put drunk drivers (I know there are some here) in those cells?
But, as with so many things, this is not as it seems. For one, the only person that can lay adultery charges is the wife; and it's supposed that about 1% of wives actually do this because of the social stigma--and the fact that they'll be divorced if it's true...although with a conviction she'd get more out of the guy in alimony.
As well, the burden of proof is something like that in a capital case. Get this: if the two are just fooling around then it's not adultery. There needs to be complete, um, penetration (sorry, trying to make this as G-rated as possible) in, um, the spot. Just oral fixations are not enough. Also, there needs to be physical evidence: sperm, to be exact. So if nothing, um, 'big' happens then no crime. (Obviously, as you may have guessed, if the gal remains a virgin then the both of them are Scot-free...which seems a little odd, to say the least.)
Here's an anecdote: wife suspects an affair; she finds out the two are in a hotel together; she alerts the police who go there and enter the room; they find him and the girlfriend naked in the room. No arrest. Why? Well, they were just talking and they had their clothes off because it was so hot...no penetration, no physical evidence, no case. The wife didn't give up, though--she gathered 'evidence' from many used rooms and won her case and got her divorce and a big severance package. (Why the husband wasn't scared straight after the police raid I'll never figure out.)
All that said, and the bit about protecting women taken into account, the idea of criminalizing adultery in Korea is kind of LOL-inducing. LOL both because it's targetting women and because it's hypocritical to be so Puritan about marriage while allowing prostitution to thrive. In spite of noisy crackdowns every now and again, prostitution is estimated to have accounted for 1.6% of the country's GDP last year, with more than 46,000 brothels accounting for roughly 94 million transactions, though all three figures were considerably higher a few years ago. That awkward euphamism isn't mine, by the way. And, I'm delighted to remind you we're coming up on the two-year anniversary on one of my favorite bits of Korean news, which highlights just how prevalent prostitution is both in general and in corporate culture.
Male workers who vow to stay away from prostitutes after year-end celebrations in South Korea are to be rewarded.
The Ministry for Gender Equality is offering cash to companies whose male employees pledge not to pay for sex after office parties.
Men are being urged to register on the ministry's website. The companies with most pledges will receive a reward.
Officials say they want to put an end to a culture in which men get drunk at parties and go on to buy sex.
Not to change the subject, but here's an interesting fact from the AFP article about the OK case:
According to a survey quoted by newspapers last year, nearly 68 percent of South Korean men and 12 percent of women confessed to having sex outside marriage.
So I guess Korean men are philanderers and Korean women are liars. And there are so many motels around because Koreans really like to travel.
This looks really neat. The Boseong Tea Plantation Light Festival (보성차밭 빛의 축제), from December 19th through February 15th. There are quite a few pictures on the Boseong website. Here's another one:
Should you want to spend the night and see the tea fields again in the day, there are a few motels in town, as well as a ton of more expensive pensions.
Some kind soul has taken some of the videos off the elementary school CD-ROMs and uploaded them for the world to enjoy. I had forgotten just . . . how . . . brutal these are. I can't pick a favorite, nor do I want to, but I guess I'll embed just one:
Maybe one more.
I just pooped my pants. Go watch them all, and understand that we're required to teach this bullshit in elementary school as part of the government curriculum. The last one on the page teaches students how to say "he has a long hair," whatever the fuck that means. These videos are paired with this teachers' guide for a helluva one-two combo of ignorance. HT to Ms. Parker in Korea for the link and for making me relive 2006.
Oh, and I'll wire 20,000 won to whomever uploads the blackface skit on the Grade 6 CD-ROM.
The KT has coverage of a new Dokdo documentary coming out on December 31st. A big player in all this is singer Kim Jang-hoon, the guy who always runs Dokdo ads in foreign newspapers. He narrates the documentary. I wonder if this article was written by the blogger Dokdo Is Ours. Do you have a favorite part?
The Dokdo islets in the East Sea
. . .
The islets have been out of the news recently, but they return this month with documentary film `` Sorry Dokdo."
"First of all, I can't believe we have come this far. It was hard just to set foot on the islands, as the weather was so foggy most of the time. We also had to find people who really loved Dokdo and listen to their stories."
. . .
"We didn't want to refute every little thing Japan threw at us. The movie is not about teaching people about our rights, but about the facts. The film doesn't force any message. We just looked into the lives of the people related to Dokdo, like the 80-year-old man who started learning English just to teach foreigners more about Dokdo and the members at VANK (Volunteer Agency Network of Korea)."
. . .
Dokdo lover Kim was tapped
"Even for me, the Dokdo issue comes as a rather furious and extreme issue. But the movie is calm and peaceful. There were even some tear jerking moments for me at the end," he said.
. . .
"We don't have much materials or relevant documents regarding this issue"
. . .
"As a singer, my ultimate dream is to hold a big festival at Dokdo. It will be a natural way to remind the place to even foreigners. Where is the festival being held? At Dokdo. Where is that? In the East Sea? And where is that? In Korea," he added.
. . .
"We tend to forget too fast. It's been a while since the Dokdo issue was the main news in our conversations, and I think this is the perfect time to bring such a film to the public," he said.
Jesus Tapdancing Christ.
Well, I know foreigners don't forget too fast, and are always concerned about this important issue. If you're like me you keep getting these goddamn emails from Canal Executivo. You also like to wear your love for the islets. I'm proud to remind you of a couple top-notch choices.
The first one is from prominent food blogger Zen Kimchi and is available here, the second by Andy in South Korea and is available through Babo Shirts. With all respect to Mr. Kimchi, even love for Dokdo in the East Sea of Korea won't compel many foreigners to spend $20 on a t-shirt.
The number of students enrolling rose to 2,500 this year from 2,300 a year earlier against dwindling figures for Chinese schoolchildren, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
Korea has about 20 Chinese schools across the country, and many parents are sending their children to them so they can learn the language.
``My child can learn Chinese at a relatively cheap cost here. I am 100 percent satisfied with this Chinese school,'' said the mother of a six-year-old girl attending Busan Chinese Primary School in Chorayng-dong in the nation's biggest port city.
Another father of a child attending the school said his seven-year-old son would study at the Chinese school until fourth or fifth grade before transferring to a Korean school. ``We can save one year, as Chinese schools enroll children one year earlier than Korean schools and tuition is cheap,'' he said.
. . .
Principals and parents at Chinese schools say more than half of students are Korean nationals and many don't meet the requirements for admission.
Asked about admission criteria, the largest Chinese school in Incheon said any Korean children, regardless of whether they have foreign residence cards or more than three-years overseas, can apply to the school.
``As far as I know, Koreans account for more than 80 percent of the total of students at most Chinese schools in the provinces,'' said a principal of one school in Busan.
I'm surprised those schools can survive the trauma of two nationalities calling each other "外國人" at the same time. Or "外国人," whatever, you get the point.
According to the Supreme Court, foreigners may prosecute a spouse if he or she has an extramarital affair. On the topic of a Canadian woman who filed charges against her Korean husband:
The husband appealed the case to the top court, claiming his Canadian wife has no right to accuse him of an extramarital affair since adultery is not against the law in Canada.
``Regardless of nationality, everyone on Korean territory must abide by Korea's laws since they are based on the principle of extraterritorial privilege for jurisdiction,'' said Judge Koh Hyun-chul in the ruling. ``Thus, regardless of his wife's nationality, she can accuse him of adultery.''
Holla!!! Adultery is illegal in Korea, and made the news recently because an actress is in court fighting the charge.
A Japanese court ruled yesterday that it is constitutional for school principals to order teachers to stand and sing "Kimigayo," the national anthem.
In the first high court ruling on a refusal to sing the anthem, Presiding Judge Shoichi Maruyama rejected the teachers’ claim that pay cuts imposed on them by the Kitakyushu city government in Fukuoka Prefecture for refusing to sing the song be nullified, although the Fukuoka District Court acknowledged the claim in its 2005 ruling.
‘‘It cannot be acknowledged that an order over the assignment (to sing the anthem) immediately translates into a negation of teachers’ views about history and world, and it therefore cannot be said that it goes against the Constitution that provides for freedom of thought and conscience,’’ the judge said.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits are 17 elementary and junior high school teachers and a teachers’ union in the city of Kitakyushu.
Because it sings the glory of the Emperor, some view the anthem as an extension of Japan's militaristic past. Wikipedia translates the lyrics into English thusly:
May your reign Continue for a thousand, eight thousand generations, Until the pebbles Grow into boulders Lush with moss
And also provides information on past controversies:
Since Oct 23, 2003, 410 teachers and school workers have been punished for refusing to stand and sing the anthem as ordered by school principals. This has made recent headlines.
Schools have seen conflict over both the anthem and the flag, as the Tokyo Board of Education requires that the anthem be sung and that the flag be flown at events at Tokyo metropolitan government schools, and that school teachers respect both (by, for example, standing for the singing of the anthem) or risk losing their jobs. Some have protested that such rules violate the Constitution of Japan, while the Board, for its part, has argued that since schools are government agencies, their employees have an obligation to teach their students how to be good Japanese citizens.
Opponents respond that as Japan is a democratic country, a national anthem praising a monarch is not appropriate and that forced participation in a ceremony involving the singing of an anthem is against the freedom of thought clause in the Constitution (Article 19). The government stated at the time of the Act of 1999 that the lyrics are meant to wish for Japan to be at peace with the emperor as a symbol of unity.
In 2006 Katsuhisa Fujita, a retired teacher in Tokyo, was threatened with imprisonment, and fined 200,000 yen (roughly 2,000 US dollars), after he was accused of disturbing a graduation ceremony at Itabashi High School by urging the attendees to remain seated during the playing of the anthem. At the time of Fujita's sentence, 345 teachers had been punished for refusing to take part in anthem related events, though Fujita is the only man to have been convicted in relation to it.
As a way to avoid that type of punishment, teachers who are opposed to the compulsory singing of the anthem have tried to expand various English-language parody lyrics across Japan and through the Internet. The parodies take the Japanese syllables and replace them with English phonetic equivalents (for example, in one of the more popular versions, "Kimi ga yo wa" becomes "Kiss me girl, your old one"), allowing those who sing the new version to remain undetected in a crowd.
Commentors on Japan's answer to Dave's have said this ruling is typical of an era of increasing nationalism. I don't have my ear to the ground enough to comment on that, but browsing some blog posts and through Wikipedia has turned up some alarming stuff. Probably the, um, best quotations come from current Prime Minister Taro Aso:
In 2001, as economics minister, he was quoted as saying he wanted to make Japan a country where "rich Jews" would like to live.
On October 15, 2005, he praised Japan for having "one culture, one civilization, one language, and one ethnic group," and stated that it was the only such country in the world. Such statements seem to be in conflict with the fact Japan has various indigenous ethnic groups spread over its northern islands. At a lecture in Nagasaki Prefecture, Aso referred to a Japanese peace initiative on the Middle East, stating, "The Japanese were trusted because they had never been involved in exploitation there, or been involved in fights or fired machine guns. Japan is doing what the Americans can't do. It would probably be no good to have blue eyes and blond hair. Luckily, we Japanese have yellow faces."
Shinzo Abe gave Taro a run for his money, though. Not to change the subject, it was interesting to learn that both the national anthem and the national flag were only officially designated in 1999.
A Japanese journalist reported that a graduate student studying politics at a top Japanese university could not understand what he was saying when he mentioned The Times of England. It was only when the journalist wrote down “The Times” that the student understood and said, “za-tai-muze!” the Japanese pronunciation of the name of the paper. Similarly, the Japanese pronunciation of “toilet” is “toire.”
The English-speaking capabilities of today’s young Japanese, however, are exceeding those of young Koreans. We should not base our ideas on old Japanese English. Japan is no longer a nation of incompetent English speakers.
I don't get the point of the column, but anecdotal evidence has shown that Koreans, in spite of generally having little ability to show for their decades of English study and exposure, are better at English than are the Japanese. Your thoughts?
Basically the only reason I posted this article was to share the cartoon that accompanies it. The foreigner looks about right, but as you can see the Chosun Ilbo is distorting Japanese culture by their inaccurate depiction. The Japanese man's teeth are not protruding, nor is his hair styled into a chonmage, a popular interpretation in Korea most recently seen in this Japanese textbook at my school.
Koreans enjoy deriding the Japanese for their mispronunciation of English words, though if you teach here you'll scratch your head at such an ironic and misplaced source of pride. There's a little more I want to add to that matter, but I'm saving it for a post-dated entry coming out while I'm on vacation in January. How's that for a cliffhanger?
I'm not sure who took these or where they're originally from, but here are a few photographs from atop Jirisan, courtesy of a local internet newspaper, 순천만뉴스.
Jirisan, Mt. Jiri, is the highest mountain on peninsular South Korea at 1,915 meters, and is the centerpiece of Jirisan National Park, which extends into three provinces---Jeollanam-do, Jeollabuk-do, and Gyeongsangnam-do. For a couple of informative websites on visiting and hiking the mountain, take a look at San-shin and Korea in the Clouds.
I've heard that diners like Kimbap Nara and their clones re-served unused side dishes, but I had grown to treat it as just another foreigner urban legend, like the one about all 다방 selling handjobs. So this makes me uncomfortable:
A restaurant worker in Seoul puts leftover side dishes into a pot in front of customers to prove the dishes are not re-served, Monday. This is part of a campaign among 502 restaurants in Gangnam, southern Seoul, to stop reserving leftover dishes. Some restaurants here have come under fire for alleged “food recycling” practices.
South Korea leads the OECD in the number of new tuberculosis infections, and with 137.8 cases per 100,000 people in 2002, it ranks among developing nations in that regard.
. . . [S]pending by Koreans at duty free shops accounted for $166.3 million in November 2007, which is 71.4 percent out of total sales, but total spending by Koreans last month was $72.6 million, or 36.4 percent.
The number of foreign travelers going to duty free shops also outnumbered local shoppers last month.
In November 2007, Korean shoppers were estimated around 1.39 million, around 84 percent. But the number of Korean shoppers declined to 800,000, or 56.9 percent.
Among foreign shoppers, Japanese tourists visited Korean duty free shops the most. Last month, 605,000 Japanese travelers visited Korean duty free shops, from 265,000 Japanese tourists a year earlier.
Good news for Korea, because in spite of the contempt with which Koreans generally view Japanese, Japan is the nearest country and that the number of Japanese tourists was decreasing was a bit of a problem. In spite of the attention paid to attracting "foreign" tourists to Korea, and the implication that these will be English-speaking foreigners, Japanese are still the largest contingent of travelers to Korea. In October, for example, Japanese visitors to Korea outnumbered those from all of Europe by more than 3:1. Not surprising, then, that the government chose actor and Japanese adjumma heart-throb Bae Yong-joon as the Ambassador for Korean Tourism.
The slip was made in a segment of the program “Yorosen,” in which young “idol” group members act as school teachers and lecture about history. The program was aired early Friday.
Referring to the Nazi dictator as “Hitler ojisan” (Uncle Hitler), the woman lauded Hitler’s speeches as having a “soothing effect.”
“The program’s content was based on a mistaken interpretation of history and was inappropriate,” the broadcaster said.
When we last saw A-train he was on the cover of Hankyoreh 21, paired up with President Lee Myung-bak who gained the ire of Korean citizens for many reasons in 2008, including allowing the import of American beef in spite of concerns about Mad Cow Disease. Videos like the above and some of the things recorded in my "Nazis in Korea" category raise the question of how much people should be held accountable for their ignorance of world history, and how appropriate it is to assume our ethnocentric interpretations of historical figures in places where they don't register in the public consciousness.
Nerine Viljoen, a South African woman who was teaching English in Mokpo, has died as a result of injuries sustained in a November 29th apartment fire. As per the Facebook group:
Nerine passed away at 11:00 this morning.(Korean time) Her heart failed and the doctors could not get it going again. The memorial service will be Tuesday morning in Mokpo. I just wanted the parents to tell the family first and not for family members to read it on facebook. That's why I'm only informing everyone now.
Donation information again is here:
Nicko Janse van Vuuren Shinhan Bank acc no. 110 -194 -121017
A reader wanted to pass along some information regarding the "Mokpo Pub Quiz," a regular event that, this time, will benefit Nerine's cause. The next one is planned for December 19th, in Mokpo of course; more information on the Facebook page.
Still no word on a PayPal account, but I'll post it as soon as I get it.
A few recent pictures from around the province. This first one is of Jindo Bridge, a 484-meter-long suspension bridge connecting Jin-do island to peninsular South Korea.
Yeonggwang county has seen a lot of snow recently. Here are a few pictures (1, 2) of Bulgapsa temple.
Speaking of Yeonggwang, everybody's least favorite comedians made a stop there recently. Look, they're standing in funny poses! What a riot!!
Finally, last week there was a regional tourism convention in Gwangju, and there were of course racing girls there to promote Formula One racing coming to Yeongam county in 2010. Here's one demonstrating two of the many expressions in the repertoire of a standard racing model. First is cutesy:
December 10th was Human Rights Day, and a group of foreigners joined the "Halmoni," known euphemistically as "comfort women," in their weekly protest in front of the Japanese Embassy, a protest that has been going on since 1992 and which seeks apologies and reparations from the Japanese government for the program of sexual slavery during World War Two. There's an article in Oh My News titled "Riot Police Strong-Arm 'Comfort Women' Demonstration" talking about police suppression of the peaceful gathering.
I'll let you all make up your own minds about the article and the rally. While just about everyone is sympathetic to the efforts of the "comfort women," based on the video and the article it's a distortion to write that riot police were strong-arming anyone. I get the ironic angle played up by the author and by some of those quoted in the paper---the supposed irony of Korean police trying to shut down a protest against the Japanese government and its past transgressions against Korea, a cause you'd think most Koreans would support. However, it's not unusual to have police show up at a demonstration, especially in front of a foreign embassy, and given Korea's recent history of violent suppressions of democracy, I'd say in this case "strong-arm" is a charged word to throw around. And, unfortunately the article gives another blow against the gravity of the situation:
Making the matter more complicated is that in 1965, when relations between Japan and South Korea were normalized, South Korea forfeited the right for its citizens to file individual claims to the Japanese government in exchange for a lump-sum payment. The Korean government was supposed to individually compensate those conscripted into the Japanese workforce or military, but instead used most of the money for its economic development. The argument today is that Japan took advantage of a weak, young South Korea in order to negotiate an unfair agreement. While survivors of the Occupation have every reason to be angry with Japan, if they're looking for money and apologies, perhaps they're protesting in front of the wrong government building.
Say what you will about the appropriateness of English teachers getting involved in domestic issues, but what is telling is that it's foreigners making noise about the comfort women. Not only foreigners, of course, but it was just a few weeks ago that former "independence fighters" protested a decision to create a museum to former sex slaves in Seoul's Independence Park.
Earlier this month, former independence fighters and their descendants held a press conference to harshly denounce plans to erect a museum for the comfort women in Independence Park in Seodaemun District, northern Seoul.
The press conference was organized by the Korea Liberation Association.
“The proposed museum denigrates the independence movement and the men who gave their lives as patriotic martyrs for the liberation of Korea,” said Kim Yeong-il, the association’s president, at the Nov. 3 press conference.
“The museum will surely create a false image about our history by highlighting our suffering rather than our many military achievements,” Kim added.
Go read Gusts of Popular Feeling's take on the Korea Liberation Association's stance, especially since the park, and the notorious Seodaemun Prison, seems to thrive on celebrating suffering. More pronounced, I suppose, since Korea was liberated, and did not liberate itself, in spite of the efforts by the independence fighters making so much noise now.
As an aside, the "House of Sharing," the residence of the surviving comfort women, is located in Gwangju, the Gwangju in Gyeonggi-do not Jeollanam-do. On the site is also the "The Museum of Sexual Slavery by Japanese Military," open 10 to 5 every day but Monday.
Not but three minutes after I sent a heads-up to A Food Journey in Korea about an article in the Korea Herald about popular food dishes in Naju, the smallest of Jeollanam-do's five cities. Then I come across a nice article on Naju's tourist sites in the Korea Times. In the past I've made numerous jokes about how boring Naju is, but really it's not so bad if you don't mind smaller cities. It has a bunch of interesting historical sites, there's a world-famous statue of the Virgin Mary that weeps blood, and the Jungheung Gold Spa waterpark looks like it kicks a fair amount of ass. Just skip the bungee jumping.
The Joongang Ilbo has a very lengthy article about some of the problems found in marriages between Korean men and women bought from other Asian countries, and some of the things being done to make them better. Give it a read; here are a few excerpts:
Eight out of 100 Korean males married foreign women last year, according to data from the Korea National Statistics Office. In rural areas, up to 40 percent of marriages involved an international bride.
. . .
The pressures foreign wives once faced to quickly assimilate into the domestic culture and function as a Korean family member are slowly diminishing in some homes.
“It’ll always be a given that foreign brides are a substitute for Korean wives in these marriages,” admits Kang Seong-Euy, secretary-general of the Women Migrants Human Rights Center in Korea, a watchdog for migrant women.
But slowly more men are starting to think outside their culture and embracing their differences from their partners. For example, a lot of them are considering migrating to their wife’s country and settling down there after they retire."
. . .
The ministry recently changed the official classification of marriages between Korean men and foreign women on all government releases and manuals from “a family of female marriage immigrants” to “a multicultural family.” Through this move, it hopes to shift the focus from the migrant’s adaptation to Korea to an international understanding.
Earlier this year, the government began providing free online language classes for Koreans married to foreigners. Lessons are available in English, Vietnamese, Japanese, Mongolian, Thai and Chinese.
For years, South Koreans have clung to the myth of racial homogeneity. The idea was evident in common Korean expressions like danil minjok, or “a unitary race” sharing the blood of one ancestor, Dangun, who founded Gojoseon (2333 B.C.-108 B.C.).
In a country with such strong ethnic sentiment, mixed-race children were constant victims of ridicule and prejudice until the issue was highlighted by celebrities like Hines Ward, a Korean-American NFL player.
Confusion about the meaning of a multicultural society is still prevalent here. But government policies, which used to view immigration through marriage merely as a strategy to counter the country’s aging society and declining birthrates, are slowly starting to take a new approach.
. . .
Included in the recently published manual for partners of migrant women released by the Multicultural Family Support Center - a department within the ministry - is information on eating habits, family values, community awareness, honorifics and the roles of parenting in the home countries of many foreign wives, including Mongolia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan.
Shifting attitudes toward foreigners and international marriages notwithstanding, and attitudes are shifting and progressing, multicultural marriages like this are generally unhappy ones. Not surprising, considering that thousands of women are essentially imported to Korea every year to marry men who are otherwise unable to find spouses, men who often live in rural areas, are past the usual marrying age, are handicapped, or a combination of the above. There was a memorable survey done a couple of years ago that said 80% of foreign women wouldn't marry Korean men again if they had the choice.
More than half of foreigners marrying Koreans said they would not marry Koreans again if they were to separate with their spouses, a survey showed Monday.
The Corea Image Communication Institute (CICI) reported that 52 percent of foreign nationals married to Koreans have no intention of marring a Korean again if they were given a second chance.
The report is based on a survey of 100 foreign spouses living here in South Korea or abroad.
About 80 percent of the female respondents said they would not marry a Korean man for a second time, while 58 percent of males said they would marry a Korean woman again.
Lack of dialogue, excessive interference of in-law family members in house affairs, indifference towards housework and late homecomings were among the main complaints of foreign spouses.
Another article here. Interestingly, 40% of the respondants were from European countries, compared to 30% from other Asian ones.
The JI article goes on to say that one out of four foreign women married to Korean men in Jeollanam-do have experienced physical or verbal abuse from their spouses, and that 10% of foreign brides were abused regularly. According to the article again some 7.1% of divorces in Korea last year were between multicultural couples, and an earlier article said that 3,665 of these marriages ended in divorce in 2007. Browse the rest of the "International marriage" category for more links and more anecdotes. This post sums stuff up pretty well.
Ms. Parkertold me she found a copy of a guidebook, in English, for foreign brides marrying Korean men, and I'm pretty sure I found it at some point, but I don't know where the link is anymore. Anyone have it?
There are also some important rules of conduct in the classroom. The first and most important rule of Asian culture is that you must never ask a person a question that they don't already know the answer to. Otherwise you will be making them lose face, a very offensive and serious matter in Asian culture. It's equally important not to ask someone a question that they DO know the answer to, as you will then also be making them lose face as well as boring them, and establishing yourself as inferior to them.
This is equally true with writing activities, exams, homework, listening activities, grammar activities, role plays, pair work speaking exercises, and group projects. They must all be avoided as potential causes of loss of face.
. . .
Speaking the local language is a sure way to cause loss of face: by this you are implying that the person you speak with is incapable of understanding English. Failing to speak the language will however cause immense offense to your students---why would you come to their country without learning the language? Getting drunk while in the presence of students will certainly offend them, and cause you to lose face, while failing to be as drunk as the students will cause them great loss of face. Drinking exactly the same amount as the students, however, is likely to cause you to lose face, and will offend students when they realize they are drinking with someone who has lost face.
MVRDV, a Dutch design company, recently won a competition to design the self-sufficient Gwanggyo City Centre near Seoul, South Korea. These concept drawings showing a futuristic looking city are the first images of the new town of Gwanggyo, located 35km south of the Korean capital Seoul. The design plan consists of a series of overgrown hill shaped buildings built to encourage high urban density and further developments around the Gwanggyo Power Centre.
The Gwanggyo Power Centre will consist of 200,000m2 housing, 48,000m2 of offices, 200,000m2 mix of culture, retail, leisure and education space with 200,000m2 of parking.
MVRDV explains their design as using rings to facilitate and include all the necessary town elements. “By pushing these rings outwards, every part of the program receives a terrace for outdoor life. Plantations around the terraces with a floor-to-floor circulation system store water and irrigate the plants. The roofs of these hills and the terraces are planted with box hedges creating a strong, recognizable, cohesive park,” explains MVRDV.
Last weekend I rounded up the family and went to a cute little coffee shop and waffle house in Seoul's adorable Samchung-dong (삼청동) neighborhood just north of Insa-dong and just east of Gyeongbokgung Palace.
It's called Coffee Factory and served us this delicious waffle with fruit and ice cream topping. We started eating before remembering to take a picture; the heart in the chocolate ice cream was unintentional. Also in the vicinity is Bukchon, home to a whole bunch of hanok, or traditional Korean houses. I'll direct you to some good posts on The Marmot's Holehere and here rather than attempt to discuss the must-visit neighborhood here. Here's a page sent to me recently about preserving Seoul's disappearing traditional homes, and here are photos on Flickr tagged with Samchungdong.
Later that evening something unbelievable happened: my character foil Roboseyo and I broke bread together at a Russian restaurant near Dongdaemun Stadium Station. He was kind enough to recommend not only Samchung-dong but two whole big lists of restaurants in and around Insa-dong. Much appreciated, brother. He swears a lot in real life, though, but I'm nonetheless pleased to report on my first celebrity blogger sighting.
Thanksgiving weekend I brought the Kim's Club Christmas tree out of storage. There are few things I enjoy more than the Christmas season, with its decorations and its carols. Last year I recommended the "Holiday Classics" channel on AOL radio, but this year instead of just playing . . . the classics, it plays all kinds of new garbage. The "Holiday Oldies" channel is a little better, but crap still slips in. If anybody can recommend some sites that stream good Christmas music, I'd be in your debt.
Last year I also mentioned "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen," a German Christmas carol I particularly enjoy and rank among the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. Here is a lovely choral arrangement:
And here's an even better version sung by three tenors.
Another holiday favorite is "O Come Emmanuel." The best version on YouTube is done by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. That video also provides the second-most funny comment I've read on YouTube.
Probably better than my Choir at school when we sung it.
My favorite comment is on this Jeju horse-fighting (seriously) video.
Whoa, Korean Pokemon is way different than Japanese.
TodayRoboseyo posted some of his holiday favorites, including Sufjan Stevens, a guy I had never heard of before. He sounds all right. You know who else needs to record Christmas music? Richard Hawley:
There's a Lighting Festival on from now through February 28th that looks really awesome. It's held in Gyeonggi-do's Gapyeong county, at the Garden of Morning Calm, which judging by the website looks worth a visit during warmer weather, too. There's a profile from Korea.net here, and below are a few pictures I stole off the garden's website.
Buses run regularly from the Dong Seoul Bus Terminal to the terminal in Cheongpyeong, from whence you take a taxi or local bus to the garden. The garden opens at 9 am, and the lights are on from 5 to 8:30 pm.
This is a story from November that I just saw on The Jeonju Hub. The article from the Jeonbuk Ilbois in Korean and I'm not good enough to make sense of it, but here's how TJH summarized it:
A Jeollabukdo agency placed over 600 university students in Canadian schools, but the students are saying that they were misinformed an improperly prepared. They had to study a bunch of curriculum that was of no help to them when they got to Canada and had their eyes opened. The government footed part of the bill at about (US)$10,000, while the families put up about $16,000--per student! The students, now in Canada, are saying the agency abused their trust and that of the province, and the money and prep-study turned out to be an irrelevant waste.
I heard rumors about this last week and was forwarded something off the Bill Kapoun Facebook group yesterday:
Hello friends
Today is the 9th month anniversary of William's passing. I can't believe this much time has passed already. We thank you still for all of your love and support.
This past weekend, we (especially those of you who donated at the fundraisers) were able to help someone else in need. An English teacher from South Africa was injured in a fire on Saturday, November 29th, in Mokpo South Jeolla Province. A Korean man has been arrested for throwing a lit cigarette into a hallway corridor, causing the fire.
She is in very critical condition. Her family is with her. The Mokpo community is giving their support. The newspaper didn't state her name, so I will respect this as well.
Albeit through tragic circumstances, the remainder of the money you helped raise in Korea has been given to a family in need. The total remaining amount was 13,840,000 Won. I remember very clearly how much donated money helped during Will's hospital stay. You can imagine what a financial relief that is. I hope her parents find a little ease in that so they can focus on their daughter.
Again, thank you so much.
Joanna, Will's friends and family
Bill Kapoun was an English teacher killed in a February, 2008 fire in Seoul. His death was one of many suspicious ones involving foreigners in recent memory, a list that includes: a teacher murdered at her school in Suncheon, Matthew Sellers, Jamie Penich, a teacher known only as "T," and Michael White. That's not including migrant workers and international brides, two demographics considerably more susceptible to tragedy. Telling that so little attention is paid to them. Replying to the question "was it arson?," Bill's mother said on the Facebook group:
We will never know. We had to sign papers terminating the investigation in order to have Billy's body released. The last take on it was that they were in the bedroom with the door closed, and the fire was started by some mysterious liquid under the couch in the living room. Also, we have no idea if there was any effort to extinguish the fire - or that it was such an inferno that it burned itself out. We went into the apartment, and there was no evidence of any water, foam, or any fire-fighting chemical having been used. Billy must have been so badly burned when he opened the door and was hit with the backdraft. Sejin was found lying on the bed. The bed was smoke damaged, but not burned or wet from an attempt to extinguish the fire.
Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. The torment and anguish of this is beyond comprehension.
Billy's mom
Galbijim brought us an update on the Kapoun family in August, an article that said over US$100,000 was collected through donations and fundraisers.
Nerine Viljoen was badly injured in an apartment fire two weeks ago and remains unconscious. Donation information again is:
Nicko Janse van Vuuren Shinhan Bank acc no. 110 -194 -121017
Interestingly, Bacchus-D came out in 1963, predating Red Bull by two decades. Interesting "indications and usage," though:
Fatigue, during and after illnesses, anorexia, dystrophy, febrile consumption disease, nutrition supply during pregnancy and lactancy, energy provision, asthenic diathesis.
Low-priced U.S. beef has appeared in supermarkets here in recent days, after a decision by three major retailers to start selling it again, and the reaction has been brisk business and no political fuss. Fifty tons of U.S. beef disappeared from shelves the first day it was offered for sale.
"It is our national character to get upset easily and then to forget all about it," said Park Eun-ah, 48, a romance novelist who lives in Seoul and Paris.
Park was at the meat counter at E-Mart, a large supermarket, where he had just purchased a package of barbecue beef imported from the United States. Park noted with pleasure that it was much cheaper than beef from South Korea.
Although the hysteria over U.S. beef is gone, a bitter aftertaste remains. The JoongAng Daily, a major newspaper here, said in a recent editorial that the episode had tarnished South Korea's international image.
The protests "showed that many people in this country lack scientific commonsense and chose to believe scurrilous stories instead," the paper said. "Sensationalism and distortion snatched the ground from the feet of scientists and experts."
The article also revisits perhaps my favorite quotation from the whole of Mad Bull Shit, a quotation that also ran in the Post.
"I am afraid of American beef," Cha Yoon-min, 13, told The Washington Post in June after attending a protest with his mother, a lawyer. "I could study hard in school. I could get a good job, and then I could eat beef and just die."
And one more out-of-context excerpt:
Shin Mija, 40 was caught in the middle. She was happy to be able to buy U.S. beef again but said her two teenagers would not eat it. During the spring and summer, she said, her children had been convinced by protesters that American beef would give them mad cow disease.
Shin bought it anyhow. She said she would tell her kids it came from Australia.
In an article "New visa rule boosts U.S. trips to seek spouses" from December 3, the Korea Herald looked at matchmaking agencies who help Korean women marry Korean men in the US. You know, hook them up with American benefits without all the messiness of American culture, American neighborhoods, or American people. If, as the article suggests, if these women are looking for something outside the confines of traditional married life, I'll bet they'll be in for a surprise when they find themselves with men who aren't even progressive enough to date outside their nationality. Here it is in full, from the user-unfriendly Herald site:
A 36-year-old female English teacher, surnamed Roh, is soon to move to the United States to get married. She met her future husband via a famous wedding consulting firm.
When registering her profile, Roh marked "all areas (globally)" in the regional option sector. She also added that she strongly wished to find a partner who had U.S. citizenship and a professional job in the States.
International matchmaking is becoming a common choice for high-profiled women of marriageable age. Now with the Visa Waiver Program, which started last month, allowing Korean nationals to visit the United States for 90 days without a visa, more people are seeking spouses from across the Pacific.
In Roh's case, the husband-to-be visited Korea for around a month to meet his own wife candidates via the agency. In many other cases, Korean women take a short-term trip to the United States to meet their possible spouses, who are usually second-generation Korean immigrants.
Sunwoo, one of the most famous wedding agencies in Korea, will be launching a program called the "International S.O.S." before the end of the year. The program is primarily aimed at helping Korean nationals residing in the United States who wish to find Korean life partners.
"Korean people show a strong preference for their own nationals when it comes to marriage," said Roh Kyoung-sun, manager in the Sunwoo PR marketing team. "Koreans who live abroad generally have a very narrow spouse pool, although many of them are highly eligible."
The agency, as part of the matchmaking program, will reorganize its webpage to accommodate its English-speaking members, especially the second generation of Korean immigrants in the United States.
Other wedding agencies are also experiencing recent changes in their international matchmaking market.
"Many people these days are making inquiries about international matchmaking," said an official of Duo, another renowned wedding agency. "The increasing interest has been especially conspicuous after the VWP started."
International marriage is still subject to negative prejudices. Some object to women aspiring to international marriage, and even regard them as low standing and prideless.
"We always hear stories of pregnant women spending sums of money and going through all sorts of adventures just to have their children born in the States," said Kim Mee-hee, a housewife living in Seoul. "I know that U.S. citizenship always comes in handy when it comes to a child's future, but such a feverish American dream just seems to have gone overboard."
However, international matchmaking is not just a reckless desire for American benefits.
"Most of the women desiring international matchmaking are fluent English speakers, usually with a high-level education and overseas experience," said Erica Oh, a coupling manager in the Sunwoo global team. "In many cases, such women are what they call 'gold misses' who choose to live more liberally, away from the patriarchal family culture in Korea."
International matchmaking is a cultural phenomenon in a global era, wedding agencies say. They hope that the VWP may benefit many potential travelers to the States, including those whose dream life-partners may live across the ocean.
From a lengthy piece about foreign language education in Chosun Magazine. I'll be so bold as to say English is a global language, and that its non-native speakers and learners should strive for some ownership of it. But a line like that in a Korean magazine looks strange, especially when we remember that Koreans call Korean "우리말," or "our language," and do so in that article no less. And though it's true that many English learners will wind up using English not with native speakers but as a lingua franca, that doesn't mean the accumulated culture of its speakers ought to be ignored or trumped by people who don't know the language in the first place. Taken further, lines like "It's not your own language" seem like justification for using garbage like "I feel happyness when I eat a him."
From the Korea Heraldvia the guy who does The Midnght Runner podcast:
An excerpt from American men's magazine "Playboy" was found to have been used in a practice quiz set for Seoul National University's English proficiency test.
Lee Sang-mook, who runs an English hagwon, or a private institute, in Daegu said SNU used an article titled "Bar of the Month" from Playboy magazine in its TEPS practice questions.
"It is up to SNU to choose whatever source it wants to use for the test questions, but using a men's magazine article indicates a lack of effort for developing good questions over the past 10 years," said Lee, who is writing a critical book about TEPS.
The Playboy story about a bar near Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, was just one example that undermines the credibility of TEPS, according to Lee.
He said he found about 10 misspelled words on the website of the Test of English Proficiency developed by Seoul National University at www.teps.or.kr, such as "grastp" (grasp), "respocses" (responses) and "uncerstanding" (understanding).
That's some pretty good sleuthing on the part of Lee. I was going to make a comment about the quality of material he chooses to read, but I have to give credit where it's due and applaud him for reading English-language magazines, for looking through English tests, and for being able to track down information in English. And good on him for calling out bad spelling, as these types of careless mistakes alienate readers who recognize them and undermine a source's credibility. I wonder if he's as annoyed with goddamn ridiculous punctuation errors as I am.
If his name sounds familiar it's because it's the same as a professor at, coincidentally, Seoul National University, a professor known as Korea's Stephen Hawking presumably because they both wear glasses.
If I had that kind of line-up at the back of my class, I'd be looking the other way and playing with a doll, too.
He's demonstrating an English-only class at one of the nine Seoul elementary schools who will teach English in English from the third grade.
Two things need to be said with regards to that. First of all, anytime a native speaker is teaching a class, it's English in English, especially since too often coteachers don't show up or participate. In fact, if you look through the Korean teachers' guides you'll see that they intend for the class to be taught in English, whether by a Korean teacher or a coteaching tandem. With a little confidence and initiative, even a teacher with limited English ability can get by in English by simply using classroom English, simple commands, and the target language in that particular lesson. However, even in front of young beginners, teachers are often too embarrassed to attempt to speak English, or don't know how to teach a student-centered class effective for a foreign language classroom.
Secondly, count how many native speaker teachers you see observing the class. When English in English is brought up the emphasis is always on having Korean teachers catch up, however it's important not to neglect the role foreign teachers play in the classroom, not only as important cultural touchstones but often as innovators who are better able to teach in a way appropriate for fostering English communication. However we are rarely given opportunities to observe others, and thus even those with certificates or training often lack the practical skills to be effective in a Korean classroom. I remember my year at a Gangjin elementary school I was invited to two demonstration classes. The first time I was asked to wait in the office with the other foreign teacher since *smacks forehead* our handler said the class would be boring since it was in Korean. The second time I watched a rehearsed fourth-grade lesson taught by the homeroom teacher. All the observing teachers then sat in two concentric circles after the lesson to give their thoughts on the class. They went around the room and every teacher made some comments, but when it came time for me to give my opinion they skipped over me. That was the last time I considered staying in Gangjin for a second year.
That teacher is a small celebrity today, having his photograph accompanying a number of articles. Unfortunately like many underappreciated native speaker teachers he doesn't merit mention on the school's list of faculty and staff.
There, now that last expression is something I can relate to. Browse the "English in the news" label for more takes on English education.
Korea Beat has been covering slides lately. They're actually emergency exits used at preschools, although I admit that when I first saw them fixed to the sides of 유치원s I thought they were for fun. Anyway, playing around Naver I found a few awesome ones, too.
It's a little late to be posting gift recommendations, I know, given how long it takes to pack and ship stuff back home. This will be my fourth Christmas in Korea, and I just finished my fourth December trip to Insadong to look for gifts to mail home to family. Insadong is a cute neighborhood and some of the souvineers they sell there are sharp, but at this point my family is well-stocked in wall hangings, bookmarks, masks, figurines, and other pieces of Koreana, and it's challenging trying to think up something fresh and unique. I've been wanting to send back pieces of celadon, as it is a local specialty from where I used to live, but I'm afraid they'd break en route.
I went a different route this year and loaded up on chocolate. A while back at my local Home Plus I saw they carried Jeju Orange chocolate and Cactus chocolate, and a Naver search turned up a bunch more flavors. This past weekend at Namdaemun I picked up red pepper, kimchi, and citron chocolate, but passed on the green tea, laver, pineapple, sweet potato, chestnut, and red ginseng flavors. If your family is comprised entirely or predominately of middle-aged Japanese women, they also carry Winter Sonata chocolate.
The "old" Home Plus in Suncheon---we're getting another one---carries two kinds, and they cost 5,000 won for a box of 15. That's half of what they cost at Namdaemun. They taste pretty good---orange and cactus anyway---and would be an interesting gift if for no other reason than the novelty factor. Jeju chocolate is regionally famous from what I understand, so that's another reason to give it a try.
A little update here: As luck would have it, I've been clued-in to a post by regular-reader The Constant Crafter on another interesting gift idea: Korean New Years' cards. They're not only seasonal---well, with regard to the New Year---but make great souvineers all year round. They're pretty and they're crafty, and only cost about 1,000 won each. Perhaps most importantly, they're free of the ridiculous English that graces Korean Christmas cards. Don't get me wrong, my family and I like a good chuckle every now and again, and I do end up buying a handful of cards each year as mementos, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood to look at a half-assed, sloppy interpretation of one of our biggest holidays. Like if Americans started celebrating Chuseok for no reason, and gave out Chuseok cards with pictures of busty women on the front and captions like "I hope you get to kneel before these mounds this holiday season!"
As I learned last spring, smoke detectors are practically impossible to find in Gwangju and Jeollanam-do, and are even tricky to find online. Given the lack of fire safety in apartment buildings, and the unavailability of smoke detectors, perhaps they'll join tampons, deodorant, and family photos as things you shouldn't leave your home country without. I'm not interested in debating the availability of tampons or deodorant in Korea in 2008, but you get my point.
Mike from The Underground Grocers has said he'd order some to his shop in Gwangju, but he would like to get an idea of how many people are interested. If you're in the area or can get to Gwangju easily enough, please reply to the thread on The Underground Grocers Facebook page as soon as possible and tell how many you'd like to purchase. I'm going with four: two for my place, two for my girlfriends'. Might be redundant, but maybe I'd stick one in the main room and one in the hall near the door just in case.
Here is bank account information for the South African teacher injured in a fire in Mokpo last weekend. Just a preface, this is the person who has been collecting money from the beginning, and as I understand it he is passing the money directly to the parents. I had hoped a new account would have turned up, but it can be difficult for foreigners to do something like this, I understand, with regulations on receiving and transferring money.
Nicko Janse van Vuuren Shinhan Bank acc no. 110 -194 -121017
Here is bank account information for those in South Africa, to forward money directly to her father:
D M Viljoen Absa Bank cheque acc no. 044 0920640 Mountain Mall Worcester South Africa
Main Branch code 503107
The person who gave me this information also passed along some bad news:
Doctors gave up hope. And they are busy with arrangements to take her body home when they put of the machines on Saturday.
Donations will help with travel and medical expenses. Give what you can.
No, I don't know why so little personal information about the woman has been shared about this woman. I'm not in Mokpo, have never met her, and can't really do anything about that. Hopefully others will come forward and let us put a face to the name.
* Update 1 (December 8th, 20:14): Here's a Facebook group called "Bid vir Nerine Viljoen," Afrikaans for "Pray for Nerine Viljoen." Someone set up an English version here. A Dave's poster out of Mokpo has also passed along some information about Nerine from a friend:
Her name is Nerine Viljoen. She grew up in the Western Cape South Africa. She studied her education degree in Worcester. She worked in SA teaching and found out that she cannot make a decent living with the money she earned there. She wanted to go to London but things didn't work out. In the end she came to Korea.
She said language is no barrier! And went to Jeju with her church members to do missionary work. She was planning to go to YWam next year and commit and to her mission training in New Zealand. She is just one of the unselfish people I ever met. She serves everybody and adores Korea and the crime free country were she could walk in the streets without looking over her shoulder.
She was very excited to see the snow and to ski for the very first time. As you no its a scarcety in SA.
She was also planning to go back to SA after her missions training and helping the people of her own country. She totally loves SA !! She always seemed to be positive and making a difference when she gets enough money.
We were at the Korean embassy in SA on exact same day. The next day we stood in the same row to go on the SAME flight to Korea. (Quite cool!!) From there on we stood with each other through the lonely times and became best friends.
I always told her that she is one of the few friends I think I'll still keep till I'm in my old age home racing her with my wheel chair down the corridors.
There is a group on Facebook that her close friends put together when the accident happened. It is in Afrikaans though, since English is not her first language. It's called Bid vir Nerine Viljoen. Which means Pray for Nerine Viljoen.
Nerine, the South African girl who got injured in the fire is still in the ICU. She has shown no real improvement and some other complications have developed.
The medical costs are rising and it will be difficult for the parents to cover everything. They want to give the best medical treatment for her but as we all know this can be expensive. If you feel like making a donation to help them then please contact me here on facebook. It is possible for me to collect donations from people living in Mokpo and then pass it on to the family. If you live in another city or it is not possible to meet with me then give me time until tomorrow to get the relevant banking details where you can donate money.
The same message has been posted on Dave's. I've PM'd the poster for donation information, and contacted the woman's go-between in Seoul, and will pass the information along as soon as i get it. The family will need as much help with medical and travel expenses as we can give, so let's be generous.
One of the reasons information has been slow to get out is because not many people in Mokpo know her. She wasn't hired through the Jeollanam-do education office, as most public teachers are, and thus didn't have the ready-made social network of orientation and meetings.
I was forwarded the family's phone number in Korea as the Gwangju News would like me to write something up for the next issue. Given the circumstances, though, I won't be calling as soon as I had planned.
One suggestion I made to the local education office, which announced it may start conducting optional apartment inspections to see how safe our living quarters are, is to find some way to provide us with reliable, quality smoke detectors. After Bill Kapoun died I was writing a piece for the GN on the case and the fundraising efforts, and wanted to find out where people in Jeollanam-do could buy smoke detectors. None of the big box stores had them, either in stock or online, and even Gwangju's answer to Techno Mart, "Kumho World," didn't have any either. This is the most basic of items, yet one of the most hard-to-find. Like the aversion to seat belts here, I'm puzzled by the lack of fire prevention measures in many buildings and apartments.
That's 30% of drivers; I'm sure the figure for passengers would be twice as high. From the Chosun Ilbo:
Three out of ten Korean drivers do not wear their seatbelts while driving and the same number do not obey the stop line in front of crosswalks, according to nationwide research by the Korea Transportation Safety Authority released Sunday.
According to the result of the survey of 143,762 people across 232 cities, counties and districts, an average of 70 percent of drivers wear their seatbelts while driving -- 73 percent in cities and 63 percent in rural areas. On highways, the percentage went up to 75.9 percent. The Daedeok District in Daejeon had the highest percentage of wearing seatbelts, with 97 percent. The number of pedestrians crossing crosswalks during red lights was 13,810 out of 59,411, or 18.9 percent.
Traffic safety in Korea has been a hobby horse of mine for some time, and last spring I asked why students were holding up signs saying "We Want to Live!" at rallies against Mad Cow Disease when they were far more likely to be killed on the roads or on the sidewalks. Besides leading the OECD in motor vehicle accidents, South Korea is also the most dangerous nation in the OECD for pedestrians, because as the article mentioned drivers often don't obey traffic laws or pay attention to their surroundings. However, the reckless behavior of pedestrians is also very alarming, as people of all ages will just walk out in front of traffic and will cross busy roads wherever they please. Students at one of my schools---perhaps both, I don't know---take safety education courses, classes that cover things like traffic safety and first aid, and the book says when walking across the road make eye contact with the driver and hold up your arm. I suppose that's about the best we can do, considering even at the busiest intersections in Suncheon there are no operational traffic lights.
Here's an example of what I deal with on a regular basis. In front of one of my schools is an eight-lane highway, and people routinely meander across it to get to the apartments between intersections. Just over the hill is a set of crosswalks, and about twenty meters to my right is an overpass, yet I watch people of all ages make a mad dash across it as I wait for the bus.
An article I always bring up at times like this was one that covered the failed introduction of mandatory child car seats in South Korea. In 2006 the government put a law into place requiring children under the age of 6 to be in a car seat. However, parents actually protested against the law, and it was repealed a day later. The article said that a survey done by the police in 2005 found that only 12% of parents used carseats for their small children. Here's the best line from that article:
“We don’t have to do what foreigners do in their countries. We have our own way to take care of babies,” another posting at the agency’s Web site said.
Let's not take one commentor's word as representative of an entire nation, and let's find merit in the comment in that Koreans generally hate being told by foreigners what's best for them. But that episode is revealing, and it's sad to watch stubborn pride jeopardize children's safety. If you live in Korea it's common to see small children bouncing around the car unbuckled, or crawling between the seats, or wedged against the rear window. A few years ago I was riding in a car with a family and the mother let their 10-month-old lean in between the driver and passenger seat. Then she gave him to me, in the front seat, to hold.
Actually, parents have exhibited their own ways of taking care of babies during the Mad Bull Shit rallies. While protesting the danger of American beef, some parents brought their babies to the frontlines of the violent protests, and were lauded as heroes in some quarters for their sacrifice and commitment.
A neat little article last week about a teenager who came to Korea at age 12, learned the language at six months, is set to graduate from a Gwangju high school, and plans to go to a Korean university. She's got to be the most famous high school student in Gwangju since Moon Geun-young.
Baskin Robbins and Paris Baguette have a yearly competition to see who pisses me off the most by desecrating the Christmas season. Zen Kimchi covered Paris Baguette's offering; here's Baskin Robbins' entry as modeled by boyband Big Bang:
rates 22 rich countries on how much they help poor countries build prosperity, good government, and security
and ranks each country in seven different areas.
Denmark ranked 1st overall, Canada 11th, the US 17th, and Japan 21st. The CGD has more analysis of the US numbers, and why it ranked where it did, though ROK Drop is a bit cynical about the methodology.
More information on South Korea is available on the country profile. It ranked 22nd in five of the seven categories, though on the plus side it ranked first in technology. It is also worth pointing out that this is the first year South Korea was included in the Eurocentric study, a big step in finally getting the 13th-largest economy in the world the recognition it deserves as a quote-unquote developed country.
We walked through the door and found segregated prayer rooms. There were three elaborately decorated rooms, one for Christians, one for Catholics and one for Buddhists.
Where was the Muslim prayer room? If they chose to segregate the prayer rooms, then they should have a room for each faith, not just the top three most popular religions in Korea, especially as Muslims would probably use the prayer room the most.
. . .
Muslims have lived in Korea since 1976 and currently 35,000 Muslims live in South Korea.
Islam is the world's fastest growing religion amongst people of every cultural background, and for Incheon to become a truly first class international airport, it will have to take a more welcoming stance to better appeal to international travelers.
For a Muslim, South Korea is a very difficult country to live in because there is very little awareness about Islam and it is almost impossible to find food at Korean restaurants that do not contain pork.
For Incheon Airport to become truly international and to encourage more Muslims to use it as a transit destination, I would like to see them stop discriminating against Muslims by adding a Muslim prayer room and to improve on current sign posting in the future, so that other people can pray in peace before they travel.
Surprising, but most likely ignorance, not ill-intentioned discrimination. By the way, the given reason for closing the Arab Culture Center?
The city’s excuse for closing the place down is vague, with it claiming it needs to build something it is calling a “global center” in its place.
Cool, maybe the global center can host an International Food Fair featuring food from all over the country.
Some 1,000 Korean-Americans are planning to put together a class-action lawsuit against MBC because the network's "PD Diary," which got Mad Bull Shit underway last April with its lies about the risk of Mad Cow Disease, opened them up to ridicule by other Americans.
The ethnic Koreans, including U.S. green card and citizenship holders as well as students, are claiming that they have been humiliated and ridiculed by other Americans over the turmoil regarding the safety of U.S. beef in Korea, which was partially triggered by the program.
News about a previous lawsuit against the network came out in August. I wonder if foreigners can sign up, because I know I endured daily ridicule and questioning about 크래지 카우. Easy for some to forget the mood of the spring and summer, when students and teachers were in a frenzy about Mad Cow Disease, were busy spreading half-truths and distortions, and were saying stuff like this to the papers:
Cha Yoon-min, 13, attended the protest with his mother, a lawyer in Seoul. "I am afraid of American beef," he said. "I could study hard in school. I could get a good job and then I could eat beef and just die."
Well, if you're a Korean-American and you sue MBC, let me assure you that I will humiliate and ridicule your opportunistic dumb ass.
Go ahead and read Ms. Parker in Korea'svery good post about the trend of getting foreigners on Mokpo TV. Further evidence that you can't have English-speaking foreigners on TV without rendering them totally ridiculous. An excerpt:
The problem, for me, is watching my friends stand there, puzzled because nobody has told them what is happening, so that they can be laughed at for not having a clue what to do. Minor mispronunciations when they speak Korean are emphasized in bright flashy letters along the bottom of the screen (Can you imagine if I did that to my students, to my taxi driver, to my boss??? Ohhhhhh! You said that WRONG! Hahahahahahaha. Can you imagine if we did a show like this in Canada, laughing at immigrants with accents???) Manipulating the rules, while the games are being played, so that a certain team always comes out ahead - doubly unfair as they are playing for money - or setting it up so that the foreigner inevitably becomes the buffoon... all this just bothers me.
Speaking of foreign buffoons on television, I've found a new hobby that I hope will be a regular feature on Brian in Jeollanam-do.
The parents of "J" arrived in Mokpo today from South Africa. She is apparently alive but in very bad shape after the apartment fire last weekend. The article says some locals have been collecting money to help defray the staggering medical costs. Details for fundraising efforts among foreigners haven't yet been released.
The woman is an English teacher at a middle school in Mokpo, and was badly burned and rendered comatose after a drunk man threw a cigarette butt on a sofa outside the apartment where she was sleeping. She was house- and pet-sitting for a friend who was out of town.
Demonstrations, protests, and vigils occur frequently, with participants often protesting major Korean social issues such as the following: the presence of U.S. military forces in Korea; U.S. military base relocations in Korea; labor accords; discussions regarding a Free Trade Agreement between Korea and the United States; U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq; and the Republic of Korea’s decision to maintain troops in Iraq; and, more recently, the opening of the Korean market to U.S. beef. While the majority of the political, labor, and student demonstrations and marches are non-violent, some have on occasion become confrontational. Even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can escalate into violence. U.S. citizens are therefore urged to avoid areas near demonstrations and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any protests.
U.S. citizens and their families, especially young adults, are advised to exercise prudence and caution when visiting the Hongdae and Sinchon areas of Seoul. These areas, where many night clubs are located, have occasionally been the sites of bar or street fights and harassment involving Westerners.
And under "Crime":
Although the crime rate in the Republic of Korea is low, there is a higher incidence of pick-pocketing, purse snatching, assault, hotel room and residential burglary, and residential crime in major metropolitan areas, such as Seoul and Busan, than elsewhere in Korea. U.S. citizens are more likely to be targeted in known tourist areas, such as Itaewon (near the U.S. Army Garrison in the Yongsan area) and large market areas downtown. Incidents of rape have been reported in popular nightlife districts in Seoul, as well as in the victims’ residences. Travelers should exercise caution when traveling alone at night and should use only legitimate taxis or public transportation. Travelers may reduce the likelihood of becoming a crime victim by exercising the same type of security precautions they would take when visiting any large city in the United States.
In many countries around the world, counterfeit and pirated goods are widely available. Transactions involving such products may be illegal under local law. In addition, bringing them back to the United States may result in forfeitures and/or fines.
There's also a few paragraphs on traffic safety. In spite of the Chosun Ilbo's headline, the profile doesn't actually say "dangerous" anywhere. And it's all fairly standard stuff, consistent with information you'll find on every country listed. Matter of fact it could have been more damning had it spent time on sexual assault or prostitution. The Marmot's Holewrote this up yesterday, which spawned a post by The Metropolitician about "tips to avoid being assaulted in Korea." Take the latter with as many grains of salt as you'd like; common sense would dictate one stay away from obnoxious drunk people, not feel up girls, and be mindful of your surroundings, regardless of how loud and inebriated the Koreans around you are.
You'll recall that the US Embassy in Seoul sent out an advisory for parts of Seoul in 2005 when Koreans were harassing and assaulting foreigners because of some derogatory posts on a message board. The bulk of the Embassy's message:
The U.S. Embassy is transmitting the following information through the Embassy's warden system as a public service to all U.S. citizens in the Republic of Korea. Please disseminate this message to U.S. citizens in your organizations.
Recently, inflammatory sexual content was posted to a website for English language teachers in Korea. That posting together with subsequent postings were taken by some to demean Korean women. We have noted recently, strong reaction in the form of web postings threatening attacks in the vicinity of Hongik University and the Sinchon area against Americans and other foreigners who speak English. All Americans and their families (especially young adults) are encouraged to exercise prudence and caution when visiting these neighborhoods. The Embassy advises that inappropriate social behavior in public may be seen as provocative by Korean nationals.
I'm not familiar enough with Seoul to know the extent this tension lingers at night, but anecdotal evidence is enough to convince me to find other groups to run with after dark. And last year YTN ran a story on how foreigners are turning Hongdae into a "lawless zone." You know, in the same neighborhood that is promoted as a center for art, culture, and fashion?
