A million festivals in the area this weekend.

This is a big weekend for festivals in and around Jeollanam-do. For many of us, it's a big weekend period; I have no school on the 4th and 5th, but even though we're all communists down here do not have May Day off, meaning it's only a four-day weekend for me.

* The bicycle race associated with the first annual Korean Bicycle Festival (대한민국자전거축제), which started on April 25th, will be in Suncheon on May 2nd. The race's Stage 8 starts from Palma Stadium and goes around Suncheon and Gwangyang before ending in Jinju. The parade from city hall to the stadium starts at 11:30, and the race begins at 1. More information, in Korean, from the Stage 8 page and from the two .hwp files linked on the city page.

* The Hampyeong Butterfly Festival (함평나비대축제) has been on since April 24th and will continue through May 10th. There aren't many butterflies, but the festival site is huge, pretty, and crowded.

* The Jeonju Film Festival (전주국제영화제) opened today and will continue through the 8th.

* There are a pair of festivals in Yeosu, the Turtleship Festival (여수거북선대축제) and the Tall Ship Festival (여수국제법선). I've had it up to here (motions with hand) with hearing about Yi Sun-shin, but the other festival looks pretty interesting. Both were profiled on Korea.net recently.

* Another important Korean historical figure will have a festival in his name on the 2nd and 3rd in Wando at the Jangbogo Festival (완도장보고축제).

* The Bamboo Festival (담양대나무축제) opens in Damyang on the 2nd and runs through the 7th. That should be crowded, but all right.

* The Jeamsan Royal Azalea Festival (제암산철쭉체) in Jangheung county is on the 3rd.

* The Hong Gildong Festival (홍길동축제) is in Jangseong county from the 2nd through the 5th. He is a fictious character who is, dare I say, like a Korean Robin Hood.

* And the "City of Beautiful People" until you showed up Suncheon will host the Nagan Folk Culture Festival (낙안민속문화축제) at the Nagan Folk Village from the 3rd through the 5th. I attended last year, and went to the village again for the food festival. I recommend visiting. It's accessible from city buses 63 and 68.

* A couple of festivals nearby are the tea festival in Hadong (하동야생차문화축제) and the Chunhyang Festival (춘향제) in Namwon, a cute little city that calls itself the "City of Love."

What the KT wouldn't print.

On April 23rd I submitted a piece to the Korea Times about Park Nam-sheik's ignorant comments on native speakers in an article about the school he runs to train Korean English teachers.

The president [Park Nam-sheik] stressed that a teaching license doesn't mean competence as an English teacher. ``Schools should open their doors more to those who can speak English well. Still many teachers are opposing to give opportunities to English teachers without teaching certificates to teach students at public schools,'' Park said. At the same time, he was very pessimistic about the increasing number of foreign English teachers from the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

``Most of the native English speakers don't have much affection toward our children because they came here to earn money and they often cause problems,'' Park said. ``If we need native English speakers, it would be better inviting young ethnic Koreans who have hometowns here. Also, we have to invite qualified English teachers from India, Malaysia and the Philippines as English is not a language only for Americans and British people.''
``Above all, we should produce qualified teachers who can replace native English speakers. I can assure you our school will produce such teachers,'' he added.

When I submitted a follow-up a few days later, which touched upon Park's comments and the rash of inflammatory pieces in the Korea Times these days, I was told by the editor, "It is not advisable to make a comment on a specific person." Why it's inappropriate for me to do so, yet others are given an open forum to make unsubstantiated claims of a high-profile minority group is probably due to Park being a friend of the paper.

I got a message on Dave's ESL Cafe from Yu_bum_suk, a public school teacher, who was also bothered by Park's comments and who also submitted a letter that went unpublished. He posted his letter on Dave's today, and it's reprinted below.

I read with both interest and disappointment Kang Shin-who’s article ‘IGSE to Nurture Top Quality English Teachers’. While I think it’s great that this institute wishes to produce potential English teachers who are actually fluent in English, I was rather struck by President Park Nahm-sheik’s statement ‘Most of the native English speakers [teaching in Korea] don't have much affection toward our children because they came here to earn money and they often cause problems’.

To be sure, native English teachers (NETs), like the Korean teachers IGSE employs, no doubt, are probably interested in making money. And yes, I can certainly think of some native English teachers who cause problems. However, I wonder just what he means by ‘most’ and ‘often’.

As an expert on the English language Mr Park should know that ‘most’ implies at least 51%, but more commonly implies 70% or more. He should also know that ‘often’ falls somewhere between ‘usually’ and ‘sometimes’, and that most grammarians would place it at around a 60% rate of probability. I wonder on just what research or observations, if any, he is basing these allegations.

If Mr Park is correct, and a considerable majority of the NETs employed in Korea are affectionless towards their students and / or problem-causers, this is quite unsettling indeed. But it’s also a bit puzzling. According to research presented by Professor Kim Jeong-Ryeol of Korea National University of Education at Soongsil University on 28 March of this year, public schools that have had a NET for one year or more are averaging significantly higher scores on government listening tests than schools that don’t. I wonder how this is possible when, according to Mr Park, NETs lack so much affection and cause so many problems. Just imagine the improvements that could be made if it were possible to attract NETs who do have more affection and are less prone to causing problems than the NETs Mr Park characterises.

I also wonder if Mr Park has done much thinking about why some NETs who start jobs in Korea with a lot of enthusiasm sometimes lose it. I certainly don’t blame some NETs for lacking affection when they have to deal with rude or racist employers, co-workers, or students. My first Korean boss called me ‘shebal gaesekki’ in front of a Korean teacher because I was quitting on account of his lack of professionalism. Would Mr Park be keen on displaying much affection at a workplace such as that? I was recently called ‘shebal shipsekki’ (along with various attempts to employ the F-word) by a group of high school students - thankfully not my own - passing by me on their motorbikes. I definitely wouldn’t have much affection for them if I were their teacher. Would Mr Park have much affection for foreign students who treated him like that? Will the Indians, Malaysians, and Filipinos Mr Park wishes to bring to Korea?

Of course, the generalising works in many directions. I’ve heard a number of NETs make statements such as ‘Most Korean teachers physically abuse their students’ or ‘Korean teachers often spend more time at school sleeping and Internet shopping than making lesson plans’. I wonder what Mr Park would think if I were to make such statements in an interview with a Canadian newspaper. Even if I could provide plenty of anecdotal evidence of Korean teachers doing such things, he’d probably think that I’d had some very bitter experiences with Koreans and had a particular ax to grind. I hope he realises that that’s exactly how he comes across to English readers.

Without exception, every Korean I’ve met who’s gained a high level of fluency in English has done so with the help of native speakers. Given his attitude, it will be interesting to see how Mr Park manages to prove an exception to this. I’m sure that all of the foreign universities with which he wishes to connect, many of whom have instructors who’ve taught overseas in countries like Korea, will be delighted to hear about his attitude towards native speakers and very eager to work with someone who thinks that NETs are mostly affectionless towards their students.

Fortunately, I’m blessed and grateful to work with Koreans who have a much more positive attitude about what an NET can do. Our students may not be the brightest in the nation, or be getting the very best education that money can buy (which would likely entail moving outside the nation, in any event); but I do know that for the most part I’m free to focus on what my students and I can do, not bureaucratically restricted by people who’d rather focus on what we can’t. Even if IGCE offered jobs - working with Korea’s ‘elite’ – to NETs, I’d much rather stick with a small-town school in which I know that management has a much more positive attitude.

If IGCE can produce a whopping fifty English teachers a year who are fully competent in the language they teach it could be an important drop in the bucket. However, the attitude of its president leaves me feeling very sceptical. I personally would recommend that any Korean wishing to develop more fluent and accurate English skills seek out an institution that tries to attract and retain NETs who do have passion and concern about their students and what they’re learning, and not one that rejects NETs wholesale on account of the prejudices of its director.

I like his better than mine; here's what I submitted:

I was pleased to learn about the International Graduate School of English profiled on April 22nd. And being a Jeollanam-do guy myself I was interested to read a little about Park Nam-sheik, a Chonnam National University graduate and a Seoul National University professor. The president of IGSE, Park is interested in training Korean English teachers to be more communicatively competent in the classroom, and had interesting things to say about competence being more than simply a teaching license. Korean English teachers are often unable or unwilling to use English in meaningful ways in the classroom, and any progress on that front with the younger generation is encouraging.

However, I was disappointed to read what Park had to say about native speaker teachers. “Most of the native English speakers don't have much affection toward our children because they came here to earn money and they often cause problems,” he said.

This statement is ignorant and damaging to the validity of the other points Park tried to make about training Korean English teachers, or hiring certified teachers from other countries. It shows a profound ignorance about who we are and what we do, and regrettably suggests that Park is not as trustworthy an authority on English education as believed.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only case of cranio-rectal inversion by big names in the field of English education. The most grievous example is from Lee Young-chan, a Ministry of Education official who told the Korea Times in December, in a story about the turnover rate of teachers in Seoul, “[native speakers] are neither regular teachers nor lecturers who can conduct classes independently. They are “assistant teachers,” hence their teaching experience doesn't matter much. Rather, it's better for students to have more new teachers so that they can meet various kinds of foreigners.” The most painful thing about that statement is that Lee is actually in charge of native speaker teachers at the Ministry.

In March, Koo Young-sun, the supervisor of the Incheon Office of Education, told the Times that “some [native speaker teachers] are not ethically qualified to treat children,” and a ministry spokesperson told another paper that “[f]oreign native English speakers cannot teach students without Korean teachers.”

If we as a community of native speaker teachers are to correct these stereotypes, it’s true that we need to lead by example. But it’s also true that educators and policymakers need to get with the times and quit making such groundless, sweeping generalizations. There is no evidence whatsoever that native speaker teachers lack affection for students. Ironically, this “affection” is often taken to mean beating students in order to encourage them to study harder. But on the contrary, teachers like myself and many others spend hours each week preparing for our regularly-scheduled classes, for conversation clubs, and for teachers’ workshops. Without the benefit of proper textbooks or teachers’ guides, we develop material that is both educational and entertaining. We teach our classes entirely in the target, foreign language, and we do not fall back on speaking Korean or letting a CD do the talking for us. And let’s not forget we do this while adjusting to life in a foreign country.

Furthermore there is also no reason to say we often cause problems. Actually, when we read stories about teachers behaving badly, it is not native speaker teachers but rather Korean teachers who accept bribes, beat students, sexually abuse minors, or participate in anti-government rallies. Just as it would be irresponsible to suggest that “many” Korean teachers cause problems, it is inappropriate to do the same for foreign ones.

There is, as I often say, a profound ignorance about what we do in the classroom. Perhaps the biggest challenge we face is creating a classroom environment that encourages learning in a way so contrary to the traditional Korean style. People think we “just talk” or simply play games with the students, but in reality we try to create lessons that give students a chance to use the language they’ve studied for years. We have the difficult task of bucking not only the system of passive rote learning and obedience, but also the stereotype that foreign teachers are clowns or zoo animals.

And there are further challenges we face that people don’t seem to think about. There is no curriculum in place for us, no plan for our purpose in the classroom. Sometimes we are simply there to repeat a few lines of text, sometimes we team teach with experienced Korean teachers, or sometimes we teach entirely on our own. And sometimes all three in the same day! We are contractually paired with co-teachers who, it must be said, rarely come to class or show interest in participating. We are given little direction beyond “do whatever you want” or “teach them speaking,” and we are often unable to understand the school’s textbooks because the teachers’ guides are in Korean.

It’s true that putting so many native speakers in public schools can create some headaches. Korean administrators often don’t understand what’s written in our contracts, and foreigners are often ignorant about the workplace culture of Korea. These are some of the “problems” Park is perhaps referring to, but if schools are hiring foreigners, and if foreigners are working in Korean schools, it would behoove each party to be understanding of each other’s perspective.

Rather than taking the easy way out and blaming native speaker teachers---who were, after all, recruited and hired at the behest of both the government and consumers---Park and others would be better off finding ways to meaningfully involve them in the curriculum. There may come a time when native speaker teachers may be mostly phased out of public schools, but clearly that time is well into the future, and it is in the best interest of everyone to cooperate with the goal of meaningful English education in mind.

So while the Korea Times prints prank letters, letters from maladjusted Koreans studying abroad who rant on "white-looking" English teachers, and opinions from self-hating foreigners looking to impress Koreans by blasting fellow teachers, commentary on actual articles goes unpublished. I'm not saying they should automatically print anything I write---even though they usually do---I'm just saying that if you're going to give a forum to ignorant horsefuckers who have something nasty to say about us, at least give us equal space to respond. In all fairness I do have some bigger projects with the KT that should see the light of day next month, and they've shown some willingness behind the scenes to change the current course and be more responsible to our demographic, but let me also say that should this crap continue I've got several great ideas for fake articles that will prove just as popular.

This will make your eyes bug out.

I chuckled when I saw this on Naver the other day.



It's an advertisement for a Mamonde sex toy beauty product, with Han Ga-in, one of the celebrities I can't bear to look at. Her primary function seems to be make go on TV and ridiculously make her eyes seem as big as possible.

Foreign professors at HUFS to attend sexual harassment workshop.

No, they won't be learning how to sexually harass students and coworkers, sorry about that ambiguity. From the Korea Herald:

The Hankuk University of Foreign Studies said [Tuesday] it would proceed with an hour-long session for 182 foreign professors, more than 30 percent of its faculty, each day. The session will be held in English.

"In the past, we didn't have enough foreign professors to hold such education sessions in a foreign language. But with their increased numbers, we have translated the government-distributed information booklet into English and will hold the education course, all in English, once a year," a university official said.

The content of the session will include informing professors of how the concept and standards of sexual harassment are set at schools in Korea and how such action impacts the school, the victim and the offender as well as giving them specific exemplary cases of sexual harassment, university officials said.

While these particular courses will be for foreigners---as the session is in English---the original material was translated from Korean. I'm curious, though, if Korean professors are also attending workshops. Although when we read about sexual harassment of students and colleagues in Korea it is always committed by Koreans, and in fact HUFS fired a professor in 2007 for harassing a panelist on "Chat with the Beauties," the article does come across as if it's addressing a problem area.

Lee Myeong-jo, who is the course instructor, said the educational session had been designed to prevent any possible sexual harassment activity that could result from cultural differences.

I assume that line speaks to cases like the one out of Seoul National University in December, in which a Pakistani grad student sexually harassed five women because

He told school officials that he inadvertently made mistakes due to Pakistani culture, which deems women inferior to men.

Well, though things are changing, that's not exactly a foreign notion in Korea, either.

Is this yet another fake letter in the Korea Times?

It looks like He Who Shall Never Be Named Again has one fan: a nine-year-old girl.

Gwangju female high school students stripped by English teacher as punishment.

The Gwangju Ilbo has two stories about female high school students who had their skirts forcibly removed as part of their corporal punishment. The first article, posted below, says because of poor test scores about 10 students were subject to the punishment, which had the students take their skirts off and get on their knees in front of the teachers' desk.

I can't figure out how to link directly to the two articles on the story---GFN's Michael Simning passed them along to me by searching for "치마" on the 광주일보 site---so I will repost them below. Perhaps Korea Beat or another blog can translate them in full.

‘치마 벗겨 체벌’ 10여명이 받았다

광주 C여고 여교사가 성적이 나쁜 학생들에게 교복 치마를 벗게 하는 체벌을 줬다는 보도〈본보 28일자〉와 관련, 광주시교육청이 진상조사에 나선 결과 사실로 확인됐다.
시 교육청은 28일 “해당 학교 교사와 학생들을 대상으로 조사를 벌인 결과, 이 학교 영어교사가 수업도중 일부 여학생에게 치마를 벗게 하는 체벌을 준 것으로 드러났다”고 밝혔다.
이날 시 교육청이 조사한 결과에 따르면 이 학교 1학년 영어 담당 여교사는 수업시간에 본 쪽지시험에서 성적이 나쁜 학생에게 교복 치마를 벗은 채 무릎을 꿇도록 하고, 교탁 주변을 돌게하는 벌칙을 줬다.
이 같은 벌칙은 신학기인 지난달 쪽지시험에서 ‘0점’을 맞은 학생들을 중심으로 10여명이 받았다.
이들 중 일부는 치마를 벗고 교탁 뒤에서 2∼3분간 무릎을 꿇다가 제자리로 되돌아갔고, 일부는 치마를 벗은 채 교탁 주변을 왔다갔다하는 벌을 받았다고 시 교육청은 설명했다.
문제의 여교사는 진상조사에서 “성적이 너무 나쁜 아이에 대한 벌칙의 하나로 학생들이 제안한 ‘이마 매 맞기’와 ‘치마 벗기’ 중 하나를 정했다”고 해명했다.
하지만 일부 학생들은 “학생들이 이 같은 벌칙을 제안했다는 주장은 사실이 아니며, 치마를 벗고 교실을 돌게 하는 벌칙까지 줬다”고 반박했다.
시 교육청 관계자는 “학생들과 논의해 정했다 하더라도 체벌방식이 적절치 않으므로 정확한 진상조사를 거쳐 징계 등의 조치를 취하겠다”고 밝혔다. 한편 시 교육청은 이 같은 체벌이 재발하지 않도록 광주지역 교사들을 대상으로 체벌 방지 교육 등을 강화해 나가기로 했다.
/박진표기자 lucky@kwangju.co.kr

* * *

여고생 치마 벗겨 벌 세우기

광주의 한 여자고등학교에서 일부 교사들이 수업 도중 학생들에게 교복 치마를 벗게 하는 벌칙을 주고, 욕설을 했다는 주장이 제기돼 인권침해 논란이 일고 있다.
27일 광주 C여고 학생과 학부모들에 따르면 이 학교 1학년 영어 담당 여교사가 수업 시간 도중 쪽지시험을 본 뒤 성적이 나쁜 학생들에게 교복 치마를 벗고 교실을 도는 벌칙을 주고 있다는 것.
이 학교 한 학생은 “친구들 앞에서 교복 치마를 벗고 교실을 돌면서 극심한 수치심을 느꼈다”면서 “저는 한 번 밖에 벌칙을 받지 않았지만, 다른 친구들은 수차례에 걸쳐 이러한 벌칙을 받기도 했다”고 주장했다.
또 다른 학생도 “아무리 공부를 못한다고 사춘기 소녀들의 치마를 벗기는 게 말이나 되느냐”면서 “선생님께 항의하고 싶었지만, 미움을 받을까봐 꾹 참았다”고 말했다.
이에 대해 해당 교사는 “학기초에 쪽지 시험을 봤는 데 ‘0’점이 나온 아이들이 있어 두 차례에 걸쳐 치마를 벗게한 뒤 무릎을 꿇고 있게 했으며, 벗은 치마로는 무릎을 덮고 있게 했다”면서 “치마를 벗고 교실을 돌게 했다는 말은 사실이 아니며, 요즘은 이마저도 하지 않고 있다”고 해명했다.
이 학교의 또 다른 여교사는 1학년인 A양이 꽃무늬가 새겨진 가방을 들고 등교했다는 이유로 가방을 빼앗고, 폭언을 한 것으로 알려져 학부모의 반발을 사고 있다. 이 학교는 숙녀용 가방과 빨간색 등 화려한 색상이나 꽃무늬 등이 새겨진 가방을 들고 등교하는 것을 금지하고 있다.
A양은 “다음날 학교 홈페이지 게시판에 ‘가방의 기준은 어디까지 인가’라는 글을 올렸는데, 이를 본 선생님이 저를 교무실로 부르더니 여러 선생님들이 지켜보는 앞에서 ‘낮과 밤이 다른 X’, ‘이 것도 홈페이지에 올려라’라는 등의 폭언을 했다”고 주장했다. 이후 심각한 스트레스를 겪은 A양은 결국 부모님과 상의 끝에 전학을 가기로 결정했다.
A양의 어머니는 “아이가 극심한 스트레스를 받고 우울증 증세를 보여 전학을 결심하게 됐다”면서 “우리 아이가 마지막 피해자가 되길 바라는 마음에서 시 교육청에 감사를 의뢰할 생각”이라고 울먹였다.
이에 대해 이 학교 교감은 “가방과 관련해서는 해당 교사로부터 폭언을 한 사실이 없다는 말을 들었다”면서 “치마를 벗기는 벌칙도 학생들을 의욕적으로 지도 하는 과정에서 일어난 일로 보인다”고 해명했다.
/박진표기자 lucky@kwangju.co.kr
/김형호기자 khh@kwangju.co.kr

* Update: translation by Korea Beat here; an excerpt:

According to the investigation, the female English teacher had the students, who had done poorly on a pop quiz, remove their skirts and duck-walk around the teacher’s desk.

A similar punishment was meted out to over 10 students who scored 0 on a pop quiz last month.

Some of them removed their skirts and spent two to three minutes with their knees bent before returning to their desks, and others removed their skirts and walked to the teacher’s desk and back, the Office explained.

The teacher at isse explained to the investigation, “I gave the extremely low-scoring students a choice between taking their skirts off or being hit on the forehead.”

But some of the students criticized her, saying, “the students didn’t ask for the punishment, we had to take our skirts off and walk around the classroom.”

If you're looking for a drink that will shape your face into an English letter you can't pronounce, Kim Tae-hee's got the tea for you.

Hey Korea Times, quit plagiarizing.

In my last post I made fun of the preventative measures against swine flu suggested by the Korean Center for Disease Control, since habits like handwashing with soap and mouth-covering are rarely practiced by Koreans. Thanks to commenter sonagi92 who points out that the Korea Times actually lifted all that information from a page on US's Center for Disease Control website titled "Swine Influenza and You," while attributing the information to the KCDC.

No preventative measures available against swine flu in Korea.

Korea began taking measures to screen visitors from Mexico and the United States shortly after word of the latest swine flu outbreak spread. And although pork from those two countries pose no threat, the government announced it would scrutinize imports more closely.

The government has also said that no vaccine exists for swine flu, and indicated that there are no preventative measures available to Koreans. The Korean Center for Disease Control released the following information, which comes to us via the Korea Times:

The best method is prevention. Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.

Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.

Also, try to avoid close contact with sick people. If you feel sick, the government recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

On Monday the KCDC said it may have found the first case of swine flu in a Korean, after a woman returned from a trip to Mexico.

In Jindo last weekend.

Because my post about the Gwangyang Apricot Blossom Festival was so popular---you know the festival post about a festival I didn't actually get to---I've decided to revisit the concept with a post about the Jindo Sea-Parting Festival on April 25th through 27th. I'll open with this three-minute video of a cross-dressing man selling 엿 as old women danced around him, because I know the rest of the post will just bore you.



If that isn't the best video you've seen all month, then clearly you're unqualified. I went to Jindo on Saturday, met Kelsey from Living Life Frame by Frame, wandered through town a little bit, then took a cab ride along the scenic route to Gagye Beach. Unfortunately it was too cold for my tastes, and there wasn't much going on that day. When we found a program we learned that most of the events, including the full walk, were actually scheduled for Sunday. I didn't stick around, and went back to Gwangju because I'm socially awkward to spend time with my sick girlfriend. I'll refer you to Kelsey's page for some quality pictures; here's what I ended up with:


On the big island a few hours before people could walk to the small one.


Unloading lanterns.



Straw crafts.


Old women enjoying themselves as visitors learn to play the Jindo Arirang.



People walking along the rocks as the tide goes out. The women in the second picture are collecting seaweed.


Cute Jindo puppies.


Here's a dog chained to the stage and fixed to a wagon, for some reason.


Jindo puppies shivering in the cold. They were selling for 500,000 won each.


Standing on Gagye Beach, looking out toward Haenam county.

If anyone else attended the festival, feel free to leave links to your galleries in the comments section. I'm still a little bothered that I made a combined four-and-a-half hour bus ride to Jindo to find that the festivities wouldn't take place until the next day, but, hey, at least next year people will be better informed.

Well done, Korea Herald.

The Korea Herald finally updated its webpage, and opened up its archives. This means I'll have to make it part of my daily news routine. If they could make a way to permalink to older articles---besides clicking on "print"---we'd be all set.

In honor of the professors giving midterms.

In honor of professors giving midterms this week---a practice that spawns all kinds of face-palm-inducing threads on the forums about cheating, inflating grades, and overall indifference---I'll repost an excerpt from an account of teaching English at a Korean university in the 1960s. It comes from a piece titled "My Experiences of Teaching English in Korea" from a 1965 edition of Korea Journal.

What is less easy to sympathize with [than economic considerations] is the acceptance of an appreciable number of students of the pressure and their using it to avoid 'unnecessary' work. The willingness of the faculty to assist graduation by generous marking has the deplorable effect in class of making many students complaisant towards their work. Why work, after all, if examination passing is more or less automatic? Students have frequently come to me with their names and vital statistics written on a piece of paper and asked me to give them an 'A' or a 'B' grade because they had been unable (or unwilling?) to attend any classes during the semester.

Most frustrating of all in this respect is what my friend and I have called 'the conspiracy of mediocrity.' This is a description of an apparent tendency to control the amount and the quality of work done in class in order to facilitate revision for, and the passing of, examinations. The 'conspiracy' manifests itself in complaints that work is too difficult, failure to do assignments, the arranging of class picnics for weekdays instead of weekends and numerous delaying and diversionary tactics in class---the favourite being to ask one to tell the class all about England and English university life. This is made the more annoying by the fact that there are many excellent students in class who went to get on but find that their loyalty to their classmates is stronger.

An offshoot of the economic handicap is the business of the education industry in Korea and its effect on classes, on the students, and hence on the teacher. Koreans tell me with pride of the widescale interest in,and concern for, education here. Everybody either wants to have or wants to give his children as extensive an education as possible. The pressure upon university students does not merely come from the need to present a graduation certificate to their potential employers. It also comes from parents and relatives and the social atmosphere in Korea that insist that a university education is necessary for one who wishes to become an acceptable member of society regardless of whether he is equipped for university or not. I find this objectionable if only because it is bursting with snobbery. I also find that it adversely influences the atmosphere in class.

I used the phrase 'education industry' advisedly and unpejoratively. There is an enormous demand for education and therefore it is supplied on what amounts to a commercial basis---unlike in England where education is largely in the state. Subject ot certain government controls universities must think in terms of fees paid for services rendered of profit and loss. Classes are large and for the reason given in the previous paragraph, they are often filled with students who, perhaps, should never be in a university in the sense in which one usually understands a university. They seem to be willing cogs in a credit-card filling machine. Other students for one reason or another find themselves studying a subject in which they have lost interest but in which they must continue since to change faculties is so difficult. The two kinds of student were neatly blended for me in a student who once told me that he enjoyed English literature very much but hated reading books.

Naturally enough this contributes to the casual approach towards study that is often found in class, to the ever-ready cutting of classes by all students for slight excuses like inter-university football matches (even though few students from the class may actually go to watch the game), to the attitude that if there is a street demonstration in the morning then there can be no classes in the afternoon, to the slipshod work that is done during the five minutes before, and the first five minutes in, the class in the name of assignments and finally to the feeling on the part of the teacher that the students are for these reasons schoolchildren not students.

There is another totally different handicap that students suffer when learning English at university, especially from a foreign teacher. It is the totally inadequate instruction given in middle and high schools in the practical use of English. Students, through little fault of their own other than lack of private initiative, are unable to read English quickly enough for university purposes. When I asked some graduate school students to read a short book as background material for my lectures one of the students said that it would take a fortnight to do so. This I think represents average ability. The problem is aggravated by the difficulty of obtaining books. Students, as a rule, are unable to borrow books from the university library. The choice of books available in city bookshops is limited and those books which a student can afford are even fewer in number. Students are not by English standards well read. One sophomore class of English Literature department students had not, when asked, heard of a poet called Alexander Pope.

Few students have a sufficient mastery of the language to understand a lecture given in English. Most classwork has to be done on the blackboard---what I wrote on the blackboard constituted the whole of what a sizable number of my students learned---and literature and other texts had to be selected according to whether they could be conveniently duplicated or not. All these are very constricting to a foreigner who initially expects to be able to do much more advanced work. It is a little depressing to reflect when one marks examination papers that all that has been understood of one's lectures h as been the notes one wrote on the blackboard, and that therefore one might just as well have written up a term's notes, have had them duplicated and distributed, and then simply not to have bothered to hold the classes.

The answers to the problems that these handicaps cause are hard to find, and it is quite possible that I never found them. Inattentiveness in class I ignored though other professors say that they throw daydreamers out of the classroom. Noisiness, a perpetual problem, and petty cheating during class assignments---students here do not look upon work done communally as dishonest, let alone see that it does them individually little good---one had to stop schoolmaster fashion and to me it was a loathsome business.

Most of the work I had to do was under the vague title 'English Conversation' and I know that the university administrations had little idea of what they wanted me to do. One thinks immediately of small classes and interesting discussions, but in practice one is foiled by the large size of most classes---classes sometimes contained up to sixty or seventy students---and the almost negligible grasp of spoken English by the majority of the students. The better students often implored me to have discussions in conversation classes, but less than a semester of this---my first---showed me that the discussions were held primarily between myself and a handful of good students, and the weaker brethren, even when called upon to speak, seldom said more than that they could not speak English very well.

There is in fact almost no way to bridge the large gap between the able and the poor that exists in the average class. Many people sing the praises of sentence-pattern study, but, though most of my students needed it, most thought it was too elementary after seven or eight years of English. The kind of work I did was basically oral so that there was some advantage in my being a native speaker of English. At the beginning of each semester I did a lot of dictation work. The dictations grew more difficult later and then were turned into story reproductions---I read a story two or three times and they had to reproduce it in their own words. A permanent fixture throughout the semester was pronunciation exercises, based on pairs of similar words chosen to contrast both vowels and consonants that Koreans find especially difficult in the English language. Towards the end of the semester I had students---usually volunteers---tell stories of Korea or explain things that peculiarly Korean and then, using this as a basis, I asked questions of the whole class in the hope, sometimes realized, that discussion would follow. For the rest I did oral exercises based on miscellaneous features of the English language. I used any opportunity to broaden the exercise out into free discussion if any seemed likely to be forthcoming and wrote everything that the students found difficult on the blackboard. This kind of work met, if it did not answer, the problem of large classes since it was possible to refer two or three times to every member of the class in every class. Moreover it gave the students something tangible to revise, and me something to mark out of a hundred, when it came to the examination which pure discussion classes never could.

The bulk of my teaching was, therefore, a compromise between the ideal and what I actually found in Korea. It was only for my students to say whether my compromise was adequate, useful, or successful. Some may have better answers to the problems discussed here, others, Koreans, may say that I have shown Korean education in an unjustly bad light. From the first I can learn, to the second I apologise and to both I can only say that this has been my experience.

In the paper.

My latest weekly piece for the Joongang Ilbo is out, this time on the post I wrote about "rescuing" animals. It's again sans preface, so read the remarks I made here and here.

I did some reading last Friday as I assembled the piece, and came across this blog entry from a former teacher in Mokpo. An excerpt:

Veterinarians unfortunately aren't always a lot of help. We've met a few Koreans who feel that being a vet is a good job and choosing it as a career should have little to do with love of animals. Our vet speaks great English, but Shannon and I have decided he really doesn't care for any animals' well-being. He often neglects to find proper treatment for Miso, and when Shannon and I find what's needed, he mentions how he knew that already, doesn't bother to look at our dog for any illnesses, and carries on his way. That kitten I mentioned earlier that died, our vet looked at him - well he didn't actually look, he just glanced - and said the cat was fine. 3 days later a more accomplished vet said the cat should have been on an IV and had a heat pad the whole time, and it died shortly after.

. . .

A teacher in town was walking to school and noticed a pile of garbage bags had something scurrying through it, and decided it was probably rats. 2 days went by of this scuttling, yet she never actually saw a rat, just movement amongst the bags. Finally curiosity got the better of her, and after 5 days, she dug through the garbage and found a puppy tied to a pole at the bottom of it. It had been there at least the 5 days she had noticed it, but the rope it was on was so short it had been stuck under the garbage pile the whole time.

She took it to the vet who asked why she saved it, as obviously someone wanted to get rid of it. He was even more surprised when she wanted to clean it up, get it healthy and take care of it. There's a strong "why bother" mentality here, with very few opportunities for disadvantaged animals to survive.

At the end of the piece I mentioned Animal Rescue Korea and the Facebook group "I adopted a homeless animal in Korea and lived to tell the tale," so check those out if you're looking for more information about responsibly adopting a pet and eventually taking it home with you.

Korea Times presents Korean dining etiquette.

Thanks to GFN's "City of Light" program for reminding me of this, from last week. The Korea Times presented some etiquette tips for those who would like to enjoy Korean food.

1. Wait until the oldest or most senior person at the table has begun eating before starting to eat.

2. Do not hold your spoon and chopsticks in one hand. When using chopsticks, place your spoon on the table.

3. Use your spoon to eat soup and other watery dishes before eating rice or other dishes.

4. Eat as quietly as possible and do not make excessive sounds with your utensils.

5. Refrain from excessive stirring of soup or rice at the table and do not pick out ingredients or seasonings you dislike.

6. For shared dishes, transfer food to individual plates. It is also good manners to transfer dipping sauces to individual plates before use.

7. Discreetly throw away meat and fish bones by wrapping them in tissue or paper napkin.

8. If you have to cough or sneeze, turn your face to the side and cover your mouth with your hand or a handkerchief out of courtesy to other people at the table.

I don't think I've ever seen "as quietly as possible" used to dictate any behavior in Korea, ever.

Overall divorce rates continue to drop, though international marriages continue to break up.

Korean divorce rates have dropped for the fifth consecutive year.

The number of couples filing for divorce fell in 2008 for the fifth consecutive year due mainly to a mandatory system under which couples are required to take a one- to three-month cooling off period.

Wait, what? Anyway, divorces by international couples are on the rise. From the Hankyoreh:

According to a report released Monday by Korea National Statistical Office the (KNSO), divorce rates are rapidly rising for international couples (meaning one Korean spouse and one foreign spouse) living in South Korea. Based on last year’s figures, divorce statistics show some 11,255 international couples divorced last year, representing a 29.8 percent increase from 2007 compared to a 7.5 percent increase for Koreans and their Korean spouses over the same period.

Among the divorces for international couples last year, divorces between a South Korean man and a foreign spouse accounted for 7,962 cases, more than twice the 3,293 divorces between a South Korean woman and a foreign spouse. Moreover, the 39.5 percent increase in divorces between South Korean men and foreign spouse far exceeded the 11.1 percent increase in divorces between South Korean women and a foreign spouse.

Experts are interpreting the rapid rise in divorces among international couples as having a direct correlation with the large increase since the 1980s in rural South Korean men’s rate of international marriage. The number of marriages between South Korean men and foreign women, which was 6,945 in 2000, roughly quadrupled to 28,163 marriages last year. During the same period, South Korean women’s rate of international marriage nearly doubled as well, increasing from 4,660 marriages to 8,041.

Well, there goes your Halloween lesson.

Thanks to singer "IU" (아이유) and her bringing the hottest American English slang of 2004 to Korea, you'll have a hell of a time with your Halloween lesson. K-pop has already made it difficult to get away with saying "One more time," "tell me," and "nobody," although my students seem to have forgotten that any of those songs ever existed. Here's "Boo":



For this particular video the 15-year-old decided to not wear pants, and instead opted for . . . I dunno, is that supposed to be a tutu?

* Update: dave points out that "Boo" samples Debbie Gibson's "Only in my dreams."

18-year-old Korean-American baseball player Jane Uh is continuing her quest to become the first woman in the Korean big leagues.

This should give Roboseyo more reason to post about Kim Yuna.

Kim Yuna entertains the home crowd at the "Festa on Ice" in Goyang on Friday.

Jeollanam-do expected to have 65 new centenarians this year.

There are 65 people born in 1909 still in Jeollanam-do, and should everyone keep on as they've been keeping on, there will be 220 centenarians in the province this year. Of those 65---12 men and 53 women---Yeosu has seven, the administrative division with the most. Suncheon and Gwangyang have six each.

As it stands now, Suncheon has the highest number of centenarians in the province, at 27. Suncheon had, according to a 2006 article (reprinted below), the highest number of centenarians in the country in 2005.

South Korea had 961 people over the age of 100 as of November last year, the latest population and housing census said Wednesday. This is a 2.9 percent gain from 2000, the report compiled by the National Statistical Office (NSO) said. It added that the number of centenarians per 100,000 people came to 2.03 as of Nov. 1, 2005, up slightly from 2.02 in 2000. The census also said there were 857 female and 104 male centenarians, indicating that women lived longer than men, although the number of men over 100 jumped 26.8 percent compared to 2000, much higher than the 0.6 percent increase in women. Of the total, 394 were 100 years old as of last year, 199 were 101 years old and 54 were 104. The oldest persons alive as of late last year were two women born in 1894 who are 111 years old.

The oldest man alive is 107, while the census showed one married couple older than 100. The centenarians mainly worked in the agricultural sector. They also lived in a extended family structure made up of two to three generations living under the same roof. Reflecting the importance of healthy living habits, many ate moderately, did not smoke or drink and followed well-regulated daily activities. People who lived long usually had optimistic dispositions and enjoyed eating fruits and vegetables. Many lost their spouses to death, and very few through divorce. They also got married relatively young, with the average male taking a wife at the age of 21, while the women wed at 17.3. By area, 152 lived in Gyeonggi Province, followed by Seoul and South Jeolla Province. By city, Suncheon in South Jeolla Province had the largest number of centenarians with 18, followed by Jeju and Yeosu. The NSO report, however, said that of the 961 centenarians, 165 had been reported dead as of March 22.

South Korea takes first steps against swine flu.

The Korean government has begun screening passengers arriving from the US and Mexico, says the Korea Times, in light of the outbreak of Mexican swine flu that has killed 81 so far in those two countries, and which has led the US to declare a public health emergency.

The Incheon International Airport quarantine office has toughened a rapid antigen test to screen out possibly affected people on the spot. Those detected will immediately be sent to hospitals for treatment and isolation.

``If anyone has a high fever, feels lethargic and sick, has a runny nose or severely itchy throats for a week after a trip, he or she is advised to report to the nearest public healthcare center,'' Shin Sang-sook, a KCDC official said.

The government is also looking more closely at pork imports.

The Korean National Veterinarian Research and Quarantine Service said Sunday it would toughen inspections on sampled American and Mexican pork from Monday. ``There's no possibility that the meat will give people human swine flu, but the measure is expected to settle public anxiety toward the swine influenza A (H1N1), the newest strain of the virus detected,'' an institution spokesman said.

According to the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Korea imported 200 tons of Mexican and 28,700 tons of American pork in the first quarter. Per capita pork consumption totaled 19.6 kilograms last year.

``It's safe to eat pork as it's commonly heated above 71 degrees Celsius,'' a ministry official said.

The KCDC also advised outbound travelers to monitor their food consumption while traveling.

The Joongang Ilbo also has the story. The BBC website answers some basic questions about the virus.

Photo of the day: Jindo Moses Miracle.

Visitors to Jindo walk the 2.8 kilometers from Gagye Beach to an outlying island as the sea parted for a few hours on Sunday.

I'll post my own pictures from my visit a little later, though I was disappointed in that nearly all the festival events---and the complete walk itself---turned out to be scheduled for Sunday, so I didn't stay too long on Saturday.

Korean the official language of Australia and New Zealand?

Dr. Kim Jae-bum, a professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, has written the Joongang Ilbo advocating establishing "language FTAs" with Australia and New Zealand:

In this context, a pact with Australia and New Zealand to use Korean and English as common official languages should be proposed as the best way to lay a solid foundation for concrete measures to achieve greater friendship and cooperation.

A language FTA would mean Korean, though geographically surrounded by the two mega-languages Chinese and Japanese, would overtake them in terms of practical use in Oceania. Korean would be taught at schools at all levels by Korean teachers with high proficiency in English. Korean would be used along with English in all public documents and road signs. Korean residents there will be the initial beneficiaries of such an accord.

Conversely, more Australian and New Zealand teachers with high proficiency in Korean will teach English in Korea. They will occupy a greater share of the huge English education market here.

If he's being facetious and satirizing the idea held by some to make English an official language of Korea, then his piece was very effective. If he's being serious . . . well, not so much. Your thoughts?

Feel like racing up Wolchulsan for charity?

A local teacher has organized a "King of the Mountain" race up Yeongam county's Wolchulsan, one of the region's most scenic and most popular mountains. It will take place on May 9th, will cost 5,000 won per person, and will have all proceeds going toward an orphanage in Yeosu. More on the website:

Prizes will be given for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, and a certificate for all who enter. Although sponsorship is not mandatory, a prize will also be given for the person who raises the most money for the orphanage.

Even if you don't think you're up for the challenge of racing over a mountain, please join in and do a "fun run / walk" with your friends.

Registration will be from 9am.

The race will start at 10am. (Weather permitting)

See also the Facebook event page. Kudos to him for taking the initiative to organize such an event.

The commercial for Skylife HD with the Obama impersonator seems to be back in circulation.

That's a hell of a troll job.

I have to tip my hat, this is a fine piece of work in the Korea Times this evening.

As someone who has tutored a lot in Itaewon, Seoul, and worked with a lot of Koreans over my illustrious career, one thing distresses me to no end when I'm working in Korea: Canadian flags.

They're everywhere. They're sewn onto the backpacks of numerous drunken Canadians staggering in and out of nightclubs. They're being waved by loud Canadians in the bars in Itaewon.

They're on the clothing of Canadians selling marijuana. They're all over the place, kind of like Canadian English teachers with fake diplomas.

Brought to you courtesy of The Marmot's Hole. I am distressed that the KT chose this over my response to Park Nam-sheik's comments on native speaker English teachers, though. Maybe next week.

I also, in all seriousness, need to fire off some emails to the editors over there, because this is ridiculous. Any native speaker copyeditor would not have okayed this letter, the numerous ones that are obvious fakes, or the garbage rants we see with increasing frequency, and you'd think any Korean copyeditor worth his salary would disapprove of stuff like this. The KT is still a good source of news, but its reputation is severely damaged when it prints stuff like this on its opinion page.

Business is about to pick up.

My latest post on the Sea of Japan and its appearance on Korean post office posters and Yeosu Expo promotional material has started to attract some attention, and is linked with commentary on the front page of Daum's Blogger News page. I did invite readers to state their case for using the "East Sea" in English, though this probably won't attract that sort of reader.

Cab drivers rip-off Japanese tourists, says MBC's 불만제로.

According to an MBC show, black "call vans" in Seoul routinely rip-off tourists, especially Japanese. Something to think about in light of the new "foreigner-only" cabs on the way; will this practice increase or decrease?

Seven school staff killed in car accident.

Picture from this article.

The Korea Times reports seven teachers were killed last night.

The accident occurred at around 10 p.m. when a bus rear-ended a passenger car and about nine other vehicles, including those parked at roadside in Suyu-dong. Gangbuk-gu. The exact number of cars involved was not immediately known.

All the seven occupants of the Avante car were killed after moving to a nearby coffee shop after a dinner meeting, the police said, without giving details about the conditions of the injured.

A poster on Dave's says they were accountants and office workers, not teachers. To echo the comments on the article, my condolences, but there shouldn't have been seven people in an Avante. More in Korean here, and here's another photo.

* Update: Here's a little update a few days later.

Jeollanam-do festival preview in the KT.

My May festival preview article is in the Korea Times today. I don't often laugh at my own jokes, but I'm pleased with the seventh paragraph.

2009 Nagan Folk Culture Festival: May 3rd - 5th.

The 16th Nagan Folk Culture Festival will take place at Suncheon's Nagan Folk Village from May 3rd through the 5th. Odd timing perhaps, as that's a Sunday through Tuesday, though the 5th is Children's Day and thus a day we're off from school. It also means everyone else is off, so expect crowds.

I went to this festival last year, and highly recommended it as a good time to visit the folk village if you've never been. I'll just direct your attention to that post for a fuller write-up on the village and the festival, but I will quote again from a blogger who loves the village:

This place impressed me on several levels. Part museum, part artists' colony, and part time machine, this historic, inhabited fortress town is an ideal destination for those of us who adore travel but are easily bored by museums and standard touristy fare.

The Korean counterpart to Western Renaissance Fairs, folk villages are communities dedicated to preserving and perpetuating traditional customs and craftsmanship. The village at Nagan is exceptional in that it is housed inside a Chosun-era walled fortress, which in itself is a formidable historic landmark.

Here are a few photos I took last May:







And a 귀여운 아줌마:



I was standing there filming her go at the ddeok, but since this is Korea and people are oblivious to those around them, you can guess what somebody did.

City buses 63 and 68 go there, but they run somewhat sporadically so I recommend checking the online timetable so you don't end up waiting forever.

I added this to my list of Jeollanam-do festivals about a week after it originally came out. It'll be a busy week for festivals: the Damyang Bamboo Festival is the 2nd through the 7th, the Yeosu Turtleship Festival is the 2nd through the 5th, the Wando Jangbogo Festival is also the 2nd through the 5th, and the Boseong Green Tea Festival is the 8th through the 11th. The Jeonju Film Festival and the Hampyeong Butterfly Festival will still be on, as will a couple of smaller ones. Check the list for more information.

Pretty lanterns at Songgwangsa.

Photos of lanterns reflected in a pond at Suncheon's Songgwangsa temple were on the wire yesterday.



Songgwangsa is one of two significant temples in Suncheon, as is located on the otherside of Jogyesan from the other, Seonamsa. For my money, Seonamsa is more worth the visit, although I'd love to hike someday from one to the other.

Oh this is good.

So somebody put my post about the latest "Gwangju News Fail" in their Facebook profile, and there has thus been renewed interested in it today. One person who objects to my objections says:

I can't believe how uptight and self-righteous some of you are. Seriously… maybe we should burn Andrew at the stake because he made some smartass comment about weed in some magazine that probably less than a thousand people read. Seriously, would you rather the English magazines here were government controlled and free of anything that might be considered risqué by those Hakwon owners you're so sadly terrified of? Maybe you guys should move to China.

I guess I can't speak for everybody, but personally I can't recall running into one Korean person who seemed to openly disrespect me or look down on me because he/she was suspicious of or paranoid about the drug culture in the west. The author made some crack about grass trying to get a couple of laughs. Lighten up. Enough with the persecution complex already. We're treated very well here, Koreans are not out to get us, and this line in the Gwangju News doesn’t affect any of you even slightly. Have a chuckle or roll your eyes and move on. Some of you are so frigging paranoid.

He's also the author of what might be the Dave's Thread of the Month for March, about getting fired after two weeks on the job. Why was he fired?

Okay... my job... the head of English was a really anal, uptight Jesus freak who had it out for me right off the bat, and she's buddies with the principal. We kind of skipped that polite phase upon meeting and immediately started butting heads. I don't think she was crazy about my teaching, but it was other stuff I was told were the reasons for being fired, most of them lies, probably all by her. Everyone else seemed to like me fine.

Yeah, we've all been there. Seems once the office gossip machine gets going, it takes a long time to slow down. Okay, so there was the crazy boss, and this other thing:

The main reason, though, was not that I failed a drug test, but that I was worried I'd fail a drug test. My co-teacher, who was totally cool and who I am convinced had nothing to do with this, told me I had to take a medical exam the first week of school. I read I had ninety days to take the test, and she seemed cool so I told her I was worried that I would fail the drug test, because I smoked a little grass in Thailand a few weeks back. Stupidly, she asked (hypothetically) the administrative peeps if a failed drug test would result in a teacher being fired. I passed the drug test, but the administrative people put two and two together and realized that if I was worried about failing a drug test, I obviously did drugs.

Nice going, shithead.

Somebody in Toronto doesn't like me.

Judging by some recent revisions by 74.12.78.191 to the Seoul Podcast Wikipedia page, somebody in Toronto doesn't like me.

Ignorance from yet another big name in the English industry.

You know, I was going to give a nice little write-up of the International Graduate School of English, in light of the profile in the Korea Times this morning, but I don't think I'll be as friendly now.

The president [Park Nam-sheik] stressed that a teaching license doesn't mean competence as an English teacher. ``Schools should open their doors more to those who can speak English well. Still many teachers are opposing to give opportunities to English teachers without teaching certificates to teach students at public schools,'' Park said. At the same time, he was very pessimistic about the increasing number of foreign English teachers from the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

``Most of the native English speakers don't have much affection toward our children because they came here to earn money and they often cause problems,'' Park said. ``If we need native English speakers, it would be better inviting young ethnic Koreans who have hometowns here. Also, we have to invite qualified English teachers from India, Malaysia and the Philippines as English is not a language only for Americans and British people.''
``Above all, we should produce qualified teachers who can replace native English speakers. I can assure you our school will produce such teachers,'' he added.

If by lacking affection you mean that we don't beat the students to study harder, then yes, we are not as affectionate as our Korean peers. And it's remarkable how the industry is so eager to attract foreign teachers, then so resentful of them once they're here.

Yes, yes, it's our job to lead by example and buck these stereotypes, but it would also be helpful of policy-makers and business leaders didn't have such severe cases of cranio-rectal inversion. There was a lot of what I liked in the KT's profile, but I've got to be dismissive of a guy so ill-informed about who we are and what we do.

National Assembly panel okays KORUS FTA.

The Chosun Ilbo has a bunch of photos from today's match, including one devoted to the always ricetarded Kang Ki-kap.



Still, I think my all-time favorite Kang Ki-kap gallery is this one, courtesy of Korea Beat. Here's another great one. Why does he always look like he's going after Tommy Dreamer?




If you're interested, the Joongang Ilbo profiled him back in November, and brings us this image of him versus Sabu:

Continuing the line of discussion from my Facebook status update, the Suncheon police last week arrested three high school students for going into their old middle school at lunchtime and stealing a few pairs of shoes valued at a combined 550,000 won.

You won't be so cool when you're dead.

On the day one serial killer was sentenced to death, the Joongang Ilbo reminded us of another. The Korean Consumer Agency warned of this danger in 2007 (see post 17), and the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism also issued a caution in its Cultural Guidebook for Foreigners last year.

Suncheon Dongcheon Lantern Festival coming this Sunday.

This will be of no interest to those not in Suncheon, but if you live here you might want to check out the lantern festival (순천동천유등축제) coming on Sunday at 7:00 pm. It is prominently advertised this year with the lantern in the middle of the Medical Rotary (의료원로터리, near McDonald's). It's to celebrate Buddha's birthday (부처님오신날), which actually falls on May 2nd this year, and has a small parade along the river as well as a collection of a few lanterns. It's hard to write how small this festival actually is without sounding obnoxiously modest, but it is quite tiny. I stumbled upon it last year, though, and enjoyed the fireworks and the walk along the river. It will be held at Subyeon Park (수변공원), just in front of 탑웨딩홀.

Suncheon police arrest five teenagers for drugging, raping middle schooler.

On Tuesday Suncheon police arrested one high school student and four middle school students for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl after forcing her to drink industrial varnish. It happened in a vacant lot at 11 pm on April 3rd as she was walking home.

Foreigner-only taxis that foreigners don't want to debut next month.

Foreigner-only taxis that will charge 20% more for the foreign-language abilities of their drivers will debut next month. Foreigners will be able to reserve them ahead of time, although the two websites listed in the article are not yet operational.

As you've probably noticed many cabs around the country have "free interpretation" signs on their window, which means the drivers are able to phone an interpreter. As Korea Beat translated last year, many drivers refuse to use this service, though, saying it's too impersonal. You'll notice that I have "BBB," the free over-the-phone interpretation service linked on my sidebar, which is something you might keep handy if you anticipate problems.

I've written about these cabs three times: here, here, and here. It makes more sense to either learn a few words of Korean or insist on using the free interpretation service already in place, rather than being on the look-out for these foreigner-only cabs. Well, if you're Korean is that bad that you can't say the name of your destination, then maybe you deserve to spend more.

And, you do have to wonder about what will qualify as foreign-language proficiency here. I linked to a Korea Times article in February that sounded encouraging

``Some interviewees were so fluent in foreign languages that we had a difficult time understanding what they said,'' said a Seoul government official and interviewer. ``We expect that they, with proficient language skills, will help upgrade taxi services for foreign customers.''

but after taking a quote-unquote English-language tour at Changdeokgung last weekend, and after meeting scores of Korean English teachers over the years, I have reasons to be skeptical. If you live in Korea, take a few seconds to learn how to pronounce where you're going, and don't overpay for something that's presented under the guise of being helpful. I find taxi drivers generally quite friendly and patient with my poor Korean, and are evidentally competent in dealing with some of the cretins that live around here, so hailing a cab shouldn't be an intimidating experience. Rather than further isolating ourselves from our communities, and getting driven around like we're some plump British imperialist touring the colonies, just do your best and deal with the challenges that come with operating in a foreign language and a foreign country.

"Sea of Japan" naming controversy reminds us why you shoudn't use a language you don't understand.

Another case involving the "Sea of Japan" naming controversy that should remind Koreans not to use a language they don't understand. Last month VANK found a high school textbook with "Sea of Japan" on the cover. And now it turns out a poster for the Korean postal service does the same.



The posters for the 2012 Yeosu Expo also have the "Sea of Japan." Here's one hanging at school:




As I've argued before, the name "Sea of Japan" is and ought to remain the English name for the body of water. Some 95% of Koreans, according to a survey last year, believe the name should be the "East Sea." Koreans do, of course, call it 동해 in Korean, and nobody is suggesting it be changed to 일본해 in Korean. However, the established and accepted English name is Sea of Japan, and Koreans shouldn't stick their noses into other people's languages. 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.

I know my page has been linked to Korean forums like "History Guardian" whenever I've posted on Korea's territorial disputes, and I'm sure pictures of the Yeosu poster will make their way there sooner or later If any of those readers are able, I'd like to invite them to give well-reasoned opinions as to why it should be called the East Sea in English. Things like "Japan was bad" won't cut it, nor will saying Koreans have been calling it "East Sea" for 2,000 years---because they haven't been using English that long---nor will references to a minority of old maps that label it the East Sea. You can't pick and choose which maps you trust, especially when they're inaccurate in so many other ways.

If you're so ambitious and want to "correct" English, start with your Top 40 music, with copyeditors who don't seem to know how to punctuate or capitalize a goddamn thing, and what passes for English teachers these days. Otherwise back the fuck off, k thx.

All kinds of ssireum going on in Gurye.

All kinds of ssireum (씨름, Korean traditional wrestling) going on at a little tournament last weekend in Gurye county.




You know, I think I'd like to go to one of those matches. They had some in Naju the weekend before last, and as far as I know my next chance around here will be June 26th-28th when the inaugural women's tournament comes to Gurye. But, they seem to have little exhibitions all the time---like at upcoming festivals in Daegu and Gangwon---so maybe some fights will break out around me soon.

How to sign up to comment on my site.

I saw the following comment on The Marmot's Hole this morning:

Open note to Brian in Jeollanam-do, who posted on this same topic and has indicated he follows the comments here: I’m too stupid to figure out how to sign up to comment on your site. Can you please post something explaining how to get set up? Or, better still, can you go to an easier system that doesn’t require yet another account and yet another password?

I haven't allowed anonymous comments since some of the garbage that was posted after Bill Kapoun died, and I'm not changing to another system. Unlike other bloggers, who require you to sign up exclusively for their site, with a Google ID you can post comments here and on any of the hundreds of blogspot blogs. When you get to the comments section, you'll see "No Google Account? Sign up here." You can sign up there by entering an email address and choosing a screenname. You're not obliged to build a webpage or anything.

Failing that, you can also comment with open ID. If you have an account with wordpress, livejournal, typepad, or AIM, you can post with the same username and password here. It works, I experimented with it today. Them's the breaks, and if you aren't willing to sign up, then you won't be able to comment.

My latest is in the Joongang Ilbo today. They haven't yet run any sort of introduction to the premise, so please read how I prefaced it here and here. They also inexplicably edited the last paragraph to read:

If you don’t include North Korea, Japan is the closest foreign country to South Korea. Indeed most Koreans are far more likely to meet a Japanese person on the street than an Anglophone - bad blood between the two nations notwithstanding.

That doesn't make any sense. Here's how it read when I submitted it:

If you don’t include North Korea, Japan is the closest foreign country to South Korea, and each year citizens from both countries visit the other. Indeed most Koreans are far more likely to meaningfully use Japanese than English or other foreign languages, and with the economy being what it is, are more likely to meet a Japanese person on the street than an Anglophone. The bad blood between the two nations notwithstanding, considering the linguistic and geographic closeness, and considering the relatively poor ability of Koreans in English, perhaps we will see more interest in learning Japanese in the future.

Thank you Haydn Sennitt.

Well, trashing English teachers in a Korean newspaper is a quick way to get laid---writing about Dokdo is quicker---but I don't think Haydn is interested.

Since I've lived in Seoul, I've not really gone out of my way to meet westerners here. For one thing, many of them grumble incessantly (and needlessly) about Korea and make no attempt to learn the language or meet the locals. None of them want to contribute to the country, they just want to make a buck, pay back their debts at home, have sex with as many women as they can and add them to their ``trophy" collection, and then move onto the next country.

I've had the displeasure of hearing the most vile and despicable conversations at work, where North Americans talk about all the women they've slept with in Korea. They're sleazebags who don't even have the dignity to call their ex-lovers ``women." Instead, they call them ``sluts" and believe that Asian women are loose and ``dirty." These guys are highly educated, friendly and come from both the city and the country. They're black and white and some are even ``gyomin." They have an attitude of invade, rape, and pillage that makes me embarrassed to call myself a westerner, and being alone is preferable to being friends with people like that.

I'd invite him to go fuck himself, but he'd probably abstain. That wouldn't be appropriate for a man who spends so much time writing about gays living in sin.

Gwangju News fail.

Well, here's some dumbassery from Andrew Eisenhart and from the proofreaders who let it in. From page 30 of this month's (.pdf) Gwangju News, in an article about some street food vendor:

As I walk among the teachers of future generations striving for a late night feast we begin talking about what we are going to order like we had just smoked a huge joint and were walking to Taco Bell.

I forget, what's one of the most commonly-held stereotypes of native speaker teachers here? Good going, shit head.

Slow Walking Festival on Cheongsan-do.

Cheongsan-do island in Wando county is one of the four places in Jeollanam-do designated as "slow cities" by the Cittaslow movement. It seems especially beautiful, and the papers have more pictures this week of the canola flowers I linked to last week:



This past weekend Cheongsan-do held the first annual "Slow Walking Festival" (세계슬로우걷기축제), and there are loads of pictures on it from the wire.














As you can see they invited some foreigners to come in and take photos, though they're looking here a little 재미없어. The title of the last one is "청산도 체험하는 외국인," and while people love to photograph foreigners doing just about anything remotely Korean, they could just have easily labelled the other photos "청산도 체험하는 한국인" because the "slow cities" are so counter what most Koreans experience in their daily lives. Rural life has become quite exoticized: the rural experience and its daily chores have become the basis of a popular reality show, and even today Koreans will deny that elements of it exist into the 21st century. That's essentially what these slow cities symbolize, isn't it? A real-life, fully-functional folk village? Well, real-life until the older generation dies out, and fully-functional until it stops supporting itself by means other than the tourist industry. Not a bad idea, perhaps, and on that note I'll quote something I wrote last month, because I know you wouldn't click through the link and read it there:

It reminds me of something I thought a lot about while I was in Vietnam this past January. Tourists were spending lots of money---by Vietnamese standards at least---to visit floating markets and ramshackle villages in the Mekong Delta; I'm sure the locals appreciated the extra money, but I wonder what they thought about people paying to experience what poverty and isolation necessitate. I wonder, too, what the people who live in Jeollanam-do's "slow cities" have to say about this designation. I was going to write that I'm glad to see places in Jeollanam-do getting some attention, but after seeing the way people run rough-shod over the rural flavors of the month on TV, I wonder if it's not better to just leave these communities alone.

Meanwhile, the Korea Tourism Organization plans to offer hands-on experience of slow cities nationwide.

I thought about this, too, in Vietnam, and wondered if locals would be interested in doing something like a rural experience weekend, where they . . . um, experience rural life for a weekend. Koreans have come to render the rural part of their country exotic, to the point of denying it exists to outsiders, though watching tear-jerking commercials tells me there are still flickers of appreciation for it somewhere. Likewise, a popular TV program is all about celebrities acting like fish out of water in remote farming communities. Again, ironic to pay to do what poverty and geography necessitate, but I chuckled to myself that as South Korea is trying its hardest to promote tourism and its local attractions, foreigners from all over the world were paying to boat down a dirty river and take pictures of decrepit shelters and crowded alleys.

"Beauty food for urban sweety."

Interesting slogan I saw the other day for Skin Food, a chain of cosmetics stores in Korea. Good thing most customers don't understand English, or else they'd be afraid of going in for skin whitener and coming out like this.

Gwangju News .pdf files.

Since people search for it every month, and wind up on my site, here's where you can view the Gwangju News online as .pdf files.

Running a Google search doesn't take you to the GIC homepage, but will---at least before this post went up---display this post as the first search result. Sure, it's interesting, but readers have to work through a little rant to get to the relevant link. Besides, criticizing the editor for a half-assed editorial is small potatoes compared to a bigger reason why people might not be fans of the magazine.

Beach time in Yeonggwang.

Well, not for swimming, but for catching crabs at Moraemi beach (모래미해수욕장) in Yeonggwang county.

Royal Azalea Festival in Gwangyang: April 25th - 26th.

There is an azalea festival in Gwangyang next weekend, the 국사봉 철쭉축제. Details here, in Korean, if you're interested. Here's another pic:



This weekend is also the Jindo Sea-Parting Festival and the Shinan Tulip Festival.

Basic Act on the Treatment of Foreigners in Korea translated into English.

Via Benjamin Wagner, law professor at Kyung Hee University, comes news that the Basic Act on the Treatment of Foreigners has been translated into English. He emailed the attachment to me, and I posted it to waygook.org so that I can link to it on this page. View or download the .pdf file here.

Elite has some colorful styles, modelled here by pop group Girls' Generation. By comparison the uniforms at my schools are rather staid. However, I heard that to boost sales and raise revenue we might debut special third jerseys this spring.

More on the issue of celebrities modelling ridiculous school uniforms here from An Acorn in the Dog's Food, with many relevant links. Apparently it was ruled illegal for celebrities to model uniforms, but posters of pop stars are still hanging in store windows.

Fancy a cat?

Even though the semester starts around March 1st, for some reason the public schools swap out native speaker teachers in mid-April. Plenty of them will blog about their experiences, I'm sure, and I've taken the initiative to map out the trajectory of many of their posts over the next few months.

May: Aww, I "rescued" a stray cat. It's so small and helpless, and so cute.

June: Anybody know where to get cat food and kitty litter here? Are there any vets that can take care of cats?

November: Hey, I need a cat-sitter for six weeks because I have an English camp next month and then I'm going to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Manhee Gam-sah! Sayonara!

March: Well, its time to leave Korea, anybody want a cat? She's cute but a little jumpy. I guess she's still upset about being neglected and abandoned by Koreans like that.

Substitute dogs or rabbits if you'd like, it's ridiculous how frequently that pattern occurs. Do everyone a favor and don't "rescue" any pets in Korea if you don't have roots or ties here, because you'll just end up giving the poor thing away to someone else in a few months. And don't sit there and say "I'm not like that" because you probably are.

Two screwed hagwon teachers take their case to Facebook.

Two hagwon teachers were cheated out of millions of won, and have taken their case to Facebook, and one was fired without cause. It sounds like the Labor Board is dragging its feet until the two women are forced to leave the country. Found via Chris's blog. This might be a time for the Association for Teachers of English in Korea to step up.

Bus schedules in Jeollanam-do.

Here are some links to bus timetables, provided by the websites of each city and county in Jeollanam-do. Some places haven't posted information. Some haven't posted complete information, or have posted destinations but not times. And most will require you to navigate Korean webpages. URLs for the pages seem to change pretty frequently, so let me know of any dead links.

For information on express buses, you can check this website in Korean or in English. It's useful for getting times between cities, or to figure out what time the buses run from Seoul to your county, although it doesn't offer information for all destinations. You can also play with the timetable on the Nambu Terminal (남부터미널) site, but again it's incomplete for some reason.

Boseong county has no information online.

Damyang county has an intercity bus timetable, but only for Seoul and Incheon. Route information, but not times, on local buses is available here.

Gangjin county has a timetable for select local buses.

Goheung county has a timetable for both intercity and local buses.

Gokseong county has a timetable for both intercity and local buses.

Gurye has a timetable for both intercity and local buses.

Gwangju has a timetable for its city buses. The excellent U-Square terminal in Gwangju has timetables on its website.

Gwangyang city has timetables for both intercity and local buses. Pay close attention, because there are two bus terminals in Gwangyang.

Haenam county has route information for intercity buses, but not a timetable. There is a timetable for local buses.

Hampyeong has timetables for both intercity and local buses.

Hwasun has no information online, and has one of the most ridiculously uninformative county websites I've ever seen.

Jangheung county has timetables for both intercity and local buses.

Jangseong county has timetables for both intercity and local buses.

Jindo county has timetables for both intercity and local buses.

Mokpo has no information online.

Muan county can't encode its page properly, so I won't bother sifting through the gibberish.

The city of Naju has timetables for both intercity and local buses.

Shinan is comprised entirely of islands, but there is information about local buses. It's accessible via Mokpo and Muan.

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION] Suncheon has a timetable for intercity buses. It also has route information for city buses, though not every route listed has a map or timetable. There's also a timetable for buses to the Yeosu Airport.

Wando county has timetables for both intercity and local buses.

Yeongam has timetables for both intercity and local buses.

At the bottom of this page, Yeonggwang county has times for buses to Seoul, Incheon, Seongnam, and Anyang.

Yeosu has timetables for both intercity and local buses.

The pokey for pokees?

The latest crackdown on prostitution has busted 1,400 people in the last week.

The [National Police Agency] apprehended a total of 1,477 people involved in prostitution during the first seven days, taking 14 of them into custody.

Wait, what?

I'd like to take this opportunity to talk again about "john schools," where first-time offenders go. I'll quote again this excerpt from a Hankyoreh "undercover report":

We are told that in the morning there will be classes on the criminality and harmfulness of sex crimes and testimonials from women victimized by prostitution, followed in the afternoon by classes on AIDS education and sociodramas to improve sexual awareness.

Finally, it is lunchtime.

LMMFAO.

Suncheon sets a world record.

Back in October at the Namdo Food Festival, organizers attempted to set a world record for the longest string of red peppers (가장 긴 고추 줄). Tomorrow, representatives from the Guinness Book of World records will make it official at Suncheon City Hall. Called "the longest pepper line of love" (세계에서 가장 긴 사랑의 고추줄), the string ended up being 1,395 meters long, and stretched along the wall surrounding Nagan Folk Village. It had 29,037 peppers; my girlfriend and I contributed one a piece. I can't imagine there was much competition in this category.

Some pictures I took last fall:






Traditionally Koreans would hang a string of red peppers outside their house when a son was born. And they would hang a dead baby if it was a girl.

Starting in October Suncheon residents will be able to use the internet or their cell phones to track where the city buses are and how long they'll have to wait for theirs.

Frontline visits South Korea.

The PBS documentary series Frontline has put together one on South Korea, "The Most Wired Place on Earth." You can watch it online.

First annual bike festival starts on April 25th, comes here on May 2nd.

The first annual Korean Bicycle Festival (대한민국자전거축제) will run this year from April 25th through May 3rd, and will involve a bike tour around the country.

After April 29th the course will split into two different ones, an east and a west. On Saturday, May 2nd, Stage 8 of the west course will begin at Suncheon's Palma Stadium, and contestants will ride around here and parts of Gwangyang as they head toward Jinju.

This isn't to be confused with the Tour de Korea, which has run annually since 2001. The festival is actually an off-shoot; in the past there were two routes on the Tour, one for elite competitors and one for amateurs, but this year the amateur course has been converted into the festival.

The Tour de Korea will be from June 6th through 14th, and will pass through Jeollanam-do. Stage three will go from Jeong-eup in Jeollabuk-do to Gangjin county. Stage 4, on Monday, June 8th, will go from Gangjin to Yeosu.

More results from the CSAT; Jangseong, Gwangju score well.

The results of the college entrance examination were published for the first time yesterday.

The government released details of the results of the college scholastic ability test (CSAT) taken nationwide for the first time ever Wednesday, showing a wide performance gap among regions. The disparity drew concerns that harsher competition could worsen it.

Gwangju Metropolitan City, in the far south of the Korean peninsula, topped the list in foreign languages, English, and social science for five consecutive years, according to the education ministry. About 49 percent of students there were above grade four out of a total of nine grades, which is roughly equivalent to being in the top 40 percent.

On the other hand, South Chungcheong Province marked the highest portion of students from grade seven to nine, which is accountable for the bottom 23 percent.

The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, a state-run evaluation agency, said students in Seoul and large cities outscored those in rural areas. It said those at elite schools such as foreign language schools or science schools marked far higher than ordinary schools, adding that gaps between the schools mounted up to 73 points.

While I haven't found the data for individual schools, or anything beyond the summaries in the papers, you can find various charts on the internet. The one above ranks which counties, cities, and city wards have the highest percentage of students in the top percentiles in Korean language, math, and foreign language sections. There are two math sections, and the student chooses one, depending on the type of university (s)he wishes to enter.

The following scan from the Seoul Shinmun echoes what we read last night in the Korea Times, and indicates what percentage of students in Korea's administrative divisions ranked in the upper and lower percentiles (click to enlarge).



Gwangju has the highest percentage of students in the upper percentile for foreign language, with Jeju in second place and Gangwon in third. Matter of fact Gwangju has had the highest percentage in that top-performing students for all the years shown on the above chart. Jeollanam-do has among the lowest percentages of students in the upper percentiles, but is fairly average in other areas. However, Jeollanam-do's Jangseong county ranks at the top of each subject this year.

It's curious that, for example, Haenam county (population 83,020), Damyang county (51,022), and Jangseong county (48,072) did so well. All three are rural; affluent Gangnam-gu in Seoul, a "hub" of education so to speak, is one-eleventh the size of Damyang county, but has ten times the population. Parts of Damyang and Jangseong can, however, be considered almost like outlying suburbs of Gwangju because of those who make the short commute every day.

* Update: And, worth pointing out that there are well-respected specialized schools in Damyang and Jangseong that siphon off some of the best students from the area, thereby inflating those performance numbers. It's the same phenomenon that happens all throughout the country, as students from rural areas collect in the urban centers.

A trip to the Moran meat market.

Chris in South Korea took a trip to the meat market in Moran, Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do, most notorious among foreigners for being your one-stop shop for fresh dog meat.

South Korea has a rocket of its own.

South Korea will put a satellite into space in July, the first time from its own soil. It will be launched from Naro Space Center in Goheung county. Deploying it will be the KSLV-1, pictured above in place today for some tests.

Do you remember in February the government said it was looking to the public for a catchier name for the rocket? The winners will be announced on the 30th.

Suicide at Suncheon Japanese Fortress.

A 49-year-old man hanged himself from a tree near Suncheon Waeseong (순천왜성), and was discovered yesterday by locals. He returned to his hometown in February after losing his job as a laborer in Gyeonggi-do, and killed himself because of his dire economic situation and resultant family troubles.

Gwangju students have the best CSAT English scores.

So says the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation via the Korea Times:

The government released details of the results of college scholastic ability test (CSAT) across the nation for the first time ever Wednesday, showing a wide performance gap among regions. The disparity drew concerns that harsher competition could worsen it.

Gwangju Metropolitan City, in the far south of the Korean peninsula, topped the list in foreign languages, English, and social science for five consecutive years, according to the education ministry. About 49 percent of students there were above grade four from a total of nine grades, which is roughly equivalent to being in the top 40 percent.

The disclosures are controversial because they list the results by region and school, a practice which, critics say, could be used to unfairly measure the quality of schools and administrators.

(Update): More information on the Jindo Moses Miracle.

The Jindo Sea Parting Festival (진도신비의바닷길축제)---also known as the Moses Miracle---is coming up April 25th to 27th, and resident Jindo . . . resident has posted some more information for those interested in attending. If you want to go, she says, you'd better be prepared to camp out on the beach, or have your own transportation because the sea parts early in the morning in the early evening, but probably too late to get the bus back to Gwangju. Check the comments for answers to the questions I myself had.

* Update: The walk will be held in the evening, at 5:20 PM, rather than early in the morning.

Dokdo Is Ours tells it like it is: in this country they dress the sexy women up like children, and dress the children up like sexy women.

I despise violence and aggression. And since I'm short and skinny, it's not like I'm exactly dangerous. But if what happened to Jason of kimchi-icecream ever happens to me, people would find out right quick how badly 145 pounds can fuck you up.

More news from the Old Provincial Office.

Here's a picture of the Old Provincial Office from No Cut News yesterday:


Compare that with how it looked in 1999, and up until construction got underway last year.



The plan to turn the area into a park is of course quite controversial, and yesterday people gathered outside the Old Provincial Hall to protest.



If you haven't yet, take a look at this post from Monday for more on the "Hub City of Asian Culture" plan that would re-vamp the most iconic spot in the city, including some interesting comments from the designer about what he was trying to do.



If you're here because you heard me on GFN this morning---during the 11:05 to 12:00 pm slot; listen at the website---browse the "Jeollanam-do" and the "English in the news" categories, because they're my bread and butter. Or feel free to just start from the September 18, 2007 post and work your way up through all of them.

You can't buy friends, but for five thousand won you can find some to rub on for an hour.

Made the trip to the pet cafe (비즈애견샵) in downtown Gwangju last weekend. You go, buy a 5,000 won drink, and can play with the dogs and cats that mosey around. Most of them are clothed and wearing make-up---there's a dog beauty studio in the cafe---so that's a little ehhh, but for somebody who misses his puppy back home it was a great way to spend the afternoon. Here are better pictures of the cafe and its inhabitants from Living Life Frame by Frame.

It's down the street from the post office and Burger King in Chungjang-no, on a corner across from a Mini Stop; consult this map if you don't know where I'm talking about. You will come out smelling bad, so don't plan a night out before taking a shower and hitting your coat with the Febreeze.

Susan Boyle wows the crowd on Britian's Got Talent.

I might have to play this next time to demonstrate "don't judge a book by its cover," from our book's chapter on English proverbs. It's Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables, reminiscent of the performance by Paul Potts on the same program a few years ago.

Koreans spending a lot on tutors, cram schools.

Earlier today we learned that the average Korean household spends over a million won annually on private tutors. This evening the Times and the Herald report that hagwon are overcharging, or at least charging more than they're reporting to the authorities. From the Herald:

Sixty-seven percent of hagwon or cram schools were found to be charging more than what they had reported to local education authorities, survey results showed.

Of some 500 hagwon inspected across the country, 358 were charging fees higher than those they had officially stated, the Education Ministry said yesterday.

About two fifths of those who overcharged were charging more than double the amount reported. Eight percent collected more than five times the officially stated fees.

Nearly three quarters of foreign language institutes were found to have underreported the fees.

All of the hagwon surveyed in Gwangju underreported their fees, while only 15 percent in Gangwon Province did so. The percentage of overcharging hagwon was 72.5 percent in Seoul.

The majority of the parents who sent their children to the 500 hagwon surveyed said the cram school fees were a burden.

Some 85.3 percent of the 1,516 parents polled said they were overwhelmed by the cost of hagwon fees.

Nearly all Korean students go to cram schools, or hagwon (학원). According to data reprinted in the Chosun Ilbo last fall:

According to research by the education ministry, 88 percent of elementary school students, 78 percent of middle school students and 63 percent of high school students attend private crammers. And on top of that, more than 300,000 Korean elementary, middle and high school students go overseas each year to study.

And for more on what Koreans are spending, here are some figures from a recent Hankyoreh article, found via this lengthy Joe Seoulman post:

Money spent on education supplementing regular school classroom learning also continues to rise. Household funds spent on tuition at private learning centers (excluding kindergarten, elementary, middle, high school, and university tuition) was 18.7230 trillion Won or 1.3295 trillion Won more than during 2007.

Household income spent on that kind of extracurricular learning in 2008 was more than the national budget spent on social welfare (18.4613 trillion Won) and ten times more the 1.8949 trillion Won on the environment.

Household expenditures accounted, according to that article, for 7.5% of the average household spending.

Some stats on Korean education from the OECD.

While looking for something else I came across this (.pdf file) Education at a Glance: OECD Briefing Note for South Korea, which has lots of interesting bits of information. For example, Korean public school class sizes are the largest in the OECD, and its teachers earn well above the OECD average:

Korea provides comparatively high teacher salaries with steep increases for more experienced teachers. At USD 52 666 for a primary school teacher with minimum training and 15 years of experience, Korea comes 2nd among OECD countries, while salaries at the top of the scale reach 84 263 USD, second only to Luxembourg.

Son Tae-young back to her perfect body.

Former model and sort-of celebrity Son Tae-young is in Allure (얼루어) magazine, showing off her body three months after giving birth.



I was going to blog more about her, but I'll just direct you to this All K-Pop post. It and The Grand Narrative blogged about her two months ago, when she was photographed skinnier one month after giving birth than most women ever look.

"What's in a name?"

The latest installment of my weekly column came out this morning. It has the sub-heading "It’s perplexing that Koreans use language and symbols they don’t really understand," a line taken from the last paragraph, and something I've thought, like, a million times in my four years here. That covers bars named after Rommel, internet cafes named after the space shuttle Challenger, Gibberlish, girls who try to back it up but lack the back for backing, calling children "sexy," celebrating a Christmas divorced from any meaningful context, and a bunch of other examples.

As with my last piece, I'll have to add here that the premise of the column is to give an overview of opinion expressed on my blog . . . but not my own. It's intended to be a survey of foreigner opinion, but as I said last week there's an inherent bias in doing that by looking simply at my blog. While it does have a relatively large readership---suck it Phil Griffith---there's little crossover between commentors here and, say, on Korea Beat, Marmot's Hole, or Roboseyo.

I admit I have no idea who reads the Joongang Ilbo, in paper form I mean. I flip through all the dailies online, but I haven't read an actual English-language newspaper in Korea since 2006. The readership will largely be Korean, then---especially since these papers exist to help Koreans practice their English---and I would prefer the opportunity to express more of my opinion, rather than excerpting commentors who, to be frank, don't spend hours a week preparing their words for public consumption. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for having a civil, thoughtful band of commentors, who certainly put those on other sites to shame, but I think if we're trying to introduce the Korean audience to what happens in the English K-blogosphere, it might be more useful to profile the citizens rather than the tourists.

Well, maybe it will encourage more people to visit the site and do some further reading. My stats didn't increase any last week, but I got a couple of nice emails from people who liked the piece, so there you go.

Breaking news: Koreans spend a lot on tutors.

South Koreans spent 18 trillion won on private tutors last year, an average of 1.12 million won per household, says the Korea Times.

Some parents even take on an extra job to pay for their children's tutoring fees. Dissatisfaction with the government's public education policies has also moved them to the private sector.

To show you where my head is at, I almost immediately thought of the number Koreans spend on prostitution each year: 14 trillion won. And if you want to go there, the ROK's defense budget for 2008 was 26 trillion won, just for comparison's sake.

Shinan Tulip Festival: April 15th - 28th.

The Shinan Tulip Festival (신안튤립축제) opens tomorrow. Shinan is one of the three Jeollanam-do counties comprised entirely of islands, and thus isn't the easiest place to get around. The festival is held on Imja-do, accessible by ferry from Shinan's Ji-do about once an hour.

I won't be able to go, and don't know too many people who will. It looks pretty nonetheless, and if I ever get a chunk of free time I'd love to tour around the islands of Shinan, Jindo, and Wando. This post is supposed to be informative, but it ultimately is just a chance to post this picture of a kick-ass windmill.



More available from the photo gallery.

Rap duo Mighty Mouth made sure everything remained raw at a festival along the Yeongsan River in Naju on Friday.




Mighty Mouth is responsible for the song "Energy," the song all your students danced to at the last school festival. I wonder if they were being clever in choosing their name, or if they got it confused with "Mighty Mouse," which is also spelled and pronounced the same way in Korean. Oh, and the Busta Rhymes reference in the first line would have been a lot funnier were this a 회 festival, but whatyougonnado.

One of my first acts as President of South Korea will be to outlaw sexy dances. Christ, they're bad. Here's a young woman sexying it up at the Mt. Gyeryong Ceramics Festival. She would likely be sexy enough if she just acted normally, rather than copying K-pop videos that themselves copy the latest dance moves of 2002. Jump to 1:36 for a perfect example. What the hell is that, and why does every middle school girl resort to that in the talent show? Don't they understand that they should have something to back up when they're backing it up?

Um, what?

Some weird-ass thing for Hite's Black Beer Stout today.

hahaha you suck jessica kim.

Last week in the Korea Times we were subjected to this mound of dung from the University of Virginia's Jessica Kim, a Korean-American or Korean student who doesn't like white people in Korea; an excerpt:

Recently, a lot of people have been calling me and emailing me, to the point where I just had to shut down my phone. Some even identify themselves as a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. That's a long social chain.

These random ``friends" who don't have a job or got fired recently have been trying to get in touch with me to ask me about teaching English in Korea. They all say in unison, as if it comes from the Holy Bible, ``I heard all you need is the 'white looks' and you are good to go." I have heard this millions of times already, but every time I hear it I can't help myself from cringing with every single muscle in my forehead. I may need Botox soon even though I'm only in my early 20s.

So why is Korea, the nation that even created a national day to celebrate the beauty and the history of the Korean language, seen as the place to go for those ``native speakers" who have no life goals? The aim of trying to learn English is healthy for the mind and soul ― it's for personal development. However, the situation here is to the point where it's almost an obsession, not to mention an embarrassing one.

Do we really want these ``white-looking" people to just stroll into Korea, who probably scored less than 500 out of 800 on their verbal portion of their SATs or don't even know what they SATs are, to be hailed as kings by Korean parents? This leads to my point: Korean parents need to change their attitudes.

Two quote-unquote white people, the target of Jessica Kim's ire.

Roboseyo's Robert Ouwehand sent in a rebuttal---written in full here---that appeared on the Korea Times website this evening. An excerpt:

Does she know these people well enough to accurately judge their probable SAT scores, or is she guessing wildly about their intelligence? How did she judge that they had no life goals? Is she so sure that their only qualification to teach English is their white skin?

Does she even know how many of them are asking about teaching in Korea out of a serious desire to come overseas, and how many are simply exploring possible options, the way desperate people do during a financial crisis, when they feel their options diminishing?

And how dare she call these people miserable failures in their own lives, unless she knows their entire life stories?

Finally, as a long-term professional English instructor in Korea, who works hard to improve both my craft as a teacher, and my students' true English capability, I deeply resent Kim's insinuations that my white looks are my only important qualification to teach English in Korea.

More more eloquent than my response of "Maybe your parents should have hired Chris Benoit to babysit."

Actually I responded a little on a post of my own, which fostered some thoughtful comments beneath it. As Rob pointed out in his original letter, the KT shouldn't have even printed stuff like that; there's no point even debating any merits Kim's piece may or may not have, or talking about what "qualified" really means vis-a-vis her letter, and it's just a waste of effort when we do.

"Gwangju has so much culture and history it can afford to tear most of it down."

I was so impressed with that turn-of-phrase I used on a friend's Facebook status update that I decided to use it as reason to re-post some pictures of what Gwangju plans to do to the historic Old Provincial Hall. Gwangju has taken to calling itself the "Hub City of Asian Culture" (아시아문화중심도시), ironic considering they're giving a facelift to perhaps the most cultural part of the city.






The Old Provincial Hall is an iconic symbol in a town that, quite frankly, nobody outside of it has really heard of, with the exception of those who heard about the 1980 massacre. Gwangju has consistently promoted itself as the birthplace of Korean democracy---not only because of the 1980 protests but because of an earlier student demonstration as well---even in its bids for the 2013 and 2015 Universiades.

But upon taking a second look at the project---made possible because they put up a comprehensible English-language page since I last checked---I find it less objectionable than I did before. Oh, the name "Hub City of Asian Culture" is still ridiculous and presumptuous, but reading the designer's words I've softened up. An excerpt from the project "outline" page:

I had to grapple with ways to preserve and revive the dear memories of the site where the May 18 Democratic Uprising took place. I put the Square at the heart of the site and all other surrounding facilities below ground level in order to preserve and highlight the historically significant buildings such as the former home of the provincial office, police agency, and Sangmoo Hall. The entire space is to be enclosed by groves or forests.
I also had to consider the size of crowds that would gather at a given time. The Seoul City Hall Square accommodated 600,000 spectators during the 2002 World Cup and the Times Square in New York invites 750,000 people on any given New Year's Eve. The assumption in my design was that the May 18 Democracy Square would welcome some 300,000 people and serve as an iconic urban site.
Next, I wanted to create a kind of space in the busy center of the city that is more like a lung rather than a heart. What I mean by this is that there needs to be plenty of breathing space. The answer to this was a public park. I believed that lush greenery would definitely have an impact on the surrounding environment. I took into account the fact that since Mt. Mudeung, Sajik Park, Gwangju Stream, the urban railway site, and the defunct railway site form one extensive continuum, the 30,000 pyongs of greenery at the ACC could serve as a hub of vegetation in this region.
Furthermore, the overall layout would mirror a traditional Korean residential estate characterized by "a center and periphery." The outskirts would be decorated by a shrub of bamboo trees about 8 meters in width to create a scenic view from the facilities. I paid special attention to accessibility to the site straight from the underground metro system by connecting the two subway stations and the public park so that visitors can access the facilities from underground as easily as from ground level.
I feel that an introverted structure should have some extroverted features and so designed the facilities in a way that the indoors and outdoors directly lead to each other. Stairways, escalators, and elevators are placed appropriately so that the central square is connected to a part of the city.

Compare the above designs with how the rotary looked in 1999 (and looked up until construction got underway last year):



Chungjangno does get closed to traffic from time to time: for festivals, for demonstrations, and for May 18th reenactments. The area just to the west is a massive pedestrian area with clothing stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and night clubs, so it makes sense to convert the rotary into a park and pedestrian space as well. As it stands to cross the two thoroughfares you usually have to walk through the underground shopping mall and come up on the other side. And as it stands the area surrounding that pedestrian shopping area is unsightly and unused.

Anyway, I'll remind you that last year we learned the plan is experiencing massive financial losses, and is expected to in the future as well. Which leads to a follow-up comment on that Facebook thread:

When will they realise that culture isn't simply an expo hall.

Lee Jun-ki becomes "white-looking" person, presumably to stroll into Korea.

Much to the dismay of Asshole-American and Korea Times contributor Jessica Kim, it looks like actor and singer Lee Jun-ki has added to the number of "'white-looking' people" in Korea. At least in this case, the quotation marks around white-looking make sense. "Possessing the 'white-looks'" is here part of a new album cover, rather than part of a plan to be an unqualified English teacher.

Former Unification Minister, presidential candidate, to run as independent in by-election.

Former Unification Minister and presidential candidate Chung Dong-young (정동영) left the Democratic Party last week and will run as an independent in an upcoming by-election in Jeonju. Chung gained a bit of a reputation as a North Korean lackey during his tenure in the ministry, and although he finished second in the 2007 presidential elections, was pretty soundly beaten by Lee Myung-bak. Lee earned 48.7% of the votes to Chung's 26.1%.

Chung, a native of Sunchang county, is extremely popular in the Jeolla area, though. In the 2007 election, he earned 78.7% of the votes in Jeollanam-do, compared to Lee Myung-bak's 9.2%. In Jeollabuk-do it was 81.6% to 9%, and in the Jeonju district of Deok-jin---where Chung will be vying for a seat---the score was 80.9% to 8.9%. In Sunchang, he got 90.7% of the votes.

If you shoot an unarmed black kid, withdraw into your own insular ethnic communities, or suck at English, Americans will hate you.

The Korea Times' copyeditors must've been asleep at the switch when they let this slip through. From an, um, article "'English Is Key to Survival in US'," perhaps borrowed from the Journal of Self-Evident Results:

To avoid falling into America's favorite urban scapegoats when crimes happen, Korean-Americans should need to improve their English language proficiency, a veteran Korean journalist in the U.S. said.

K. W. Lee, an 80-year-old Korean American journalist who became the first Asian immigrant to work for mainstream daily publications in the United States, said in a piece published in a Korean community newspaper that many Korean-Americans are still "without the common English medium of communication in this nation of competing groups and interests," placing them in a disadvantaged position.

In a piece, titled "No English Final: the unlearned lesson of 4.29: an English voice is the key to urban survival," he took the example of the 1992 L.A. riot in which thousands of Koreans fell victims to the racially motivated violence.

In the riot, "Korean-Americans witnessed their American dream go up in smoke overnight," he said.

"Without our own timely proactive English voice, we are shut out of the 24/7 news cycle with devastating consequences, in cases of fast developing urban unrest or anti-Korean rumor- or race-mongering. Even a high school kid learns fast that English is his or her best weapon in classrooms and school yards and dealing with school bullies."

I have to stop and think what's more offensive: that he's suggesting Korean-Americans have been, and will be again, American scapegoats, or that his newspaper article has two colons in the title.

For an article about the need for English proficiency, that's certainly a mess. Nearly as ironic as last week's fail.

90% of Seoul high schools offer Japanese.

The Korea Times says 90% of Seoul high schools offer Japanese language courses, making it the second-most studied foreign language behind English.

Chinese came next with 189 schools, followed by French with 52 and German with 47. A growing number of high school students are selecting Japanese and Chinese as their second foreign language.

As for Spanish, only four schools are offering the language course and two foreign language high schools are teaching Russian.

However, no schools are running Arabic language classes, which some 300 million people in the world use. Ironically, Arabic was the most selected language by Korean students for the college admission test last year.

With this trend, many German and French teachers have given up teaching their majors and are teaching other subjects such as Korean literature and English.

Accordingly, universities are reducing admission quotas for German, French and other unpopular language departments.

I was told people selected Arabic because it was easier to look smart in it compared to, say, in Japanese, Hanja, or German, subjects many students study. A Korea Herald article last week confirms that:

Of the nearly 100,000 students who took the optional second foreign language section in last year's College Scholastic Ability Test, 29.4 percent chose Arabic. Many students believe it is possible to get high standard scores in Arabic without studying much because no high school teaches the language.

Only 33 universities across the country require scores in this section, where students pick one from the six foreign languages -- German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Arabic -- or Chinese characters. Arabic was added to the list of elective CSAT subjects in 2005.

I posted the exam used back in November, and if you click through this Naver link, choose a source, and scroll down to 5th period you can see the foreign language questions and answers. For those who don't read Korean, the choices are: German, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, French, and Chinese characters as used in Korean. The Japanese exam is here*, as a .pdf file, and the answers are here. What do you think? Easy? Hard?

* I fixed the link. 미안해.

Forest fire in Suncheon.

It's forest fire season in Jeollanam-do, with three breaking out today including one on a hill in Gagok-dong up the road from Suncheon National University. I passed it on the bus; video here. Just three three days ago there was a little one in the reeds at Suncheon Bay.

* Update: Still smoldering on Sunday.

Buy the SOS Phone so the boy you love can feel like a man.

A new five-minute spot for Samsung's SOS Phone (SOS폰), starring Kim Bum and Kim So-eun most recently of ubiquidrama "Boys Over Flowers" fame, appeals not to a woman's need to feel safe walking alone at night, but rather to make the boy she loves feel like a hero.



More on the SOS Phone from a February post:

The SPH-W7100 phone comes with a safety pin on the rear which is able to emit a shrill beeping sound heard as far as 70 meters when pulled, Samsung officials said.

At the same time, pre-programmed emergency text messages are instantly and automatically sent to designated parents or friends, who can also check the GPS map of the site of the emergency.

When the phone is off during the emergency, the phone will send SOS message and the location information to pre-programmed numbers.

South Korea has been called a "danger country" for women by the Organisation from Economic Cooperation and Development, but it would be out of character in Korea to appeal to anything but a sense of style or the latest hit teen drama. Even the models first used to show off the phone in February played-up the cutness factor.

I have no idea what this is for, but it makes me chuckle each time I walk from the Gwangju Bus Terminal to Nongseong Station.

Pretty flowers in Jangheung, Wando.

There are some pretty canola flowers out in Jangheung county's Hoejin-myeon, the southeastern tip of the county. That's where legendary director Im Kwon-taek shot some of Beyond The Years (천년학), his 100th film, in 2006.





Since I have you here, here are a few pictures from Cheongsan-do last weekend, stolen off the wire. Cheongsan-do is an island in Wando county, and a place I'd like to visit should I ever get enough time to make the ferry trip.

Rip-off restaurants in Itaewon.

Here's a Dave's thread on the rip-off quote-unquote foreign restaurants in Itaewon. Looks like the very bad ones far out-number the good.

For some good restaurants in Seoul---in Jongno, not Itaewon---spend some time with the resources Roboseyo put together for me.

Yeongsanpo Skate Festival this weekend.

There's a 홍어 (skate) festival this weekend in Naju, if you want to go and hang out with Fatman Seoul. It makes for notoriously stinky eating

Hongeo smells and tastes something like a freshly scrubbed urinal, only more potent. Speaking of potent, some people claim it’ll make you a bit high. We can’t verify that, but we will say that the fragrance will cling to you and everything you own for days afterward, until your pores simply ooze out the scent of shark pee while you are left completely and utterly alone.

and though I actually don't mind it there's no way I'm spending this beautiful weather in fucking Yeongsanpo I'm busy this weekend so I won't attend. It means I'll be missing out on stuff like this, though:



Actually, Naju is all right, and it has improved significantly since all the asshole foreigners I didn't like left. According to a scan of a pamphlet I just saw, the festival will take place along the Yeongsan river, which is a short distance from the Yeongsanpo Bus Terminal (which you'll stop at if you take the slow bus from Mokpo to Suncheon). Yeongsanpo is still home to some Japanese architecture from the colonial period, when the town was a big deal.

Jeonju's Jeongdong Cathedral vandalized.

Jeonju's Jeongdong Cathedral, an historical property and one of the oldest Western buildings in Jeolla, was tagged with graffiti a few days ago.

"I got you under my skin" is lewd, government that doesn't understand English says.

No, it's not lewd, it's just really fucking lame. Let's try and have a chart-topping single that doesn't use ricetarded Engrish for no fucking reason. Besides, Sarah Connor does the song better.

Now that that's out of the way, and we've determined what is and isn't lewd, I'm going to watch a two-year-old shake her ass on national TV.

Government estimates 50% of rural Korean children will be biracial by 2020.

The article in the Korea Times, which provides the above illustration and the figures by way of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (what?), opens with a sad story from another victim of what's basically a slave trade. This one is in Gangjin county:

It's already been a year since 26-year-old Thien moved to Gangnjin, a small farming county in South Jeolla Province, but Korean still sounds like unbearable noise to her.

With a 35-year-old jobless husband and two elderly in-laws to take care of on a suffocating budget, the Vietnamese woman not pleased with her pursuit of the much-fantasized ``Korean Dream.''

``I don't feel like learning Korean. I'm not interested,'' Thien said through a translator, Kang Kyung-ae, who heads a support center for multicultural families in the rural town of 40,000 people.

A disappointing mix of financial hardship, language barriers and nonexistent romance has made Thien become increasingly more quiet and bitter over the past several weeks.

``I want to make a decision, whether to leave or not, before I have children,'' said the immigrant, who has a mother and two brothers at home.

The percentage of biracial children in rural areas is expected to quickly increase over the next decade both because young Koreans are leaving and because more foreign women are arriving.

People watch Korean dramas overseas and get the impression that Koreans live in palacial apartments, drive fancy cars, dress in clothes that don't clash, and generally lead lives of luxury. But of course these brides aren't being imported to Gangnam or Apgujeong, they're sent to keep house in villages and counties about as far removed from the soap operas as you can get. The women find themselves with men two or three times their age, often with disabilities or disorders that prevent them from earning much of a living. Stories like this are hard to take:

The 44-year-old Hamyang County farmer, identified only by the surname Kim, married a 20-year-old Vietnamese woman last December. Kim has a speech impediment because of his mental disability and lived with his parents until he got married. According to Lee Sang-do, a police offer at Hamyang’s Seosang Police Precinct, it was the second time he had married a Vietnamese woman.

The marriage, however, didn’t last. Kim’s bride ran away a few days after the wedding. Not knowing why his wife left him, Kim decided to make the journey to Vietnam to find her. Despite his mental disability, on Oct. 16 he took a bus to Incheon International Airport and boarded a plane to Vietnam.

Unable to speak Vietnamese, he quickly ended up on the streets. He was found by Vietnamese police last Saturday night, after two days in the country.

And there are other terrible stories, too, like the case of the 22-year-old Vietnamese woman who fell to her death in the city of Gyeongsang. It was ruled a suicide, though not much investigation was done since her 46-year-old husband had the body creamated before an autopsy could be done.

Tran’s husband, Ha, was unavailable for comment yesterday. However, according to the local police, he said that he contacted the matchmaker after Tran’s death and was told by the broker that the mother had agreed to the cremation. During the investigation, police said, Ha told them his new wife did not adjust well to her new family and that she slept a lot and did not do her chores. The two, lacking a common language, had no way to communicate.
Just a week after Tran’s arrival in Korea, the couple filed for divorce and a short time later Tran bought a ticket for a flight back to Vietnam. A day later, she plunged to her death from the balcony.
“The circumstantial evidence indicated it was a suicide,” said a senior Gyeongsan police officer who refused to be named. Further forensic examination is impossible since the body was cremated at her husband’s request, he said.

Perhaps anticipating such problems, or perhaps trying to compare these poorer women to their more uppity Korean counterparts, one Jeonju agency was running signs that said Vietnamese women wouldn't run away.



A New York Times article from a couple years ago profiled this trade between Vietnam and Korea, and said that, in 2005, 14% of new marriages in Korea were international. An excerpt from the article, which profiles the broker business that you'll find all over the place down here:

South Korean news organizations have reported that many of the foreign brides were initially lied to by their husbands, and suffered isolation and sometimes abuse in South Korea. Partly in response, the Ministry of Health and Welfare is now moving to regulate the international marriage industry, which emerged so suddenly that the Consumer Protection Board can only estimate that there are 2,000 to 3,000 such agencies nationwide.

After an initial setback — his first three choices found various reasons to decline his offer — Mr. Kim narrowed his field to a 22-year-old college student and an 18-year-old high school graduate.

“What’s your personality like?” Mr. Kim asked the college student.

“I’m an extrovert,” she said.

The 18-year-old asked why he wanted to marry a Vietnamese woman.

“I have two colleagues who married Vietnamese women,” he said, adding, “The women seem devoted and family-oriented.”

One Korean broker said the 22-year-old, who seemed bright and assertive, would adapt well to South Korea. Another suggested flipping a coin.

“Well, since I’m quiet, I’ll choose the extrovert,” Mr. Kim said finally, adding quickly, “Is it O.K. if I hold her hand now?”

She went over to sit next to him, though neither dared to hold hands. She spelled out her name in her left palm: Vien. Her name was To Thi Vien.

In South Korea, billboards advertising marriages to foreigners dot the countryside, and fliers are scattered on the Seoul subway. Many rural governments, faced with declining populations, subsidize the marriage tours, which typically cost $10,000.

The business began in the late 1990s by matching South Korean farmers or the physically disabled mostly to ethnic Koreans in China, according to brokers and the Consumer Protection Board. But by 2003, the majority of customers were urban bachelors, and the foreign brides came from a host of countries.

The widespread availability of sex-screening technology for pregnant women since the 1980s has resulted in the birth of a disproportionate number of South Korean males. What is more, South Korea’s growing wealth has increased women’s educational and employment opportunities, even as it has led to rising divorce rates and plummeting birthrates.

The rate of international marriages is much higher than 14% in rural areas, of course, with one article saying 41% of men in farming and fisheries went that route, and another source said it's as high as 37% in Jeollanam-do's Hampyeong county. That same article gives similar figures for other parts of southwestern Korea, even if it does erroneously place Imsil in Jeollanam-do and confuse Damyang with Danyang. A Korean-language article today has broken down where these women are coming from who marry men in rural areas: 45% from Vietnam, 25% from China, 12% from the Philippines, 8% from Japan, 6% from Cambodia, and the rest from elsewhere.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but the statistics say that these marriages aren't happy ones. A recent survey in the Chosun Ilbo said that 46% of international brides in Jeollanam-do want to divorce; not too different than every other demographic, I guess. A 2005 survey by the Corea Image Communication Institute found that around 80% of foreign women said they wouldn't marry a Korean again. Judge for yourselves how unique these problems are to Korean marriages:

Asked about the bad points of living with a Korean, over half the respondents cited lack of communications, and nearly half complained about interference from other family members. A third said they didn't like the fact that their spouses came home late at night.
And that was the opening wedge in a series of differences in the experiences of foreign women married to Korean men and vice versa. Those late nights were primarily women's complaints, of course, but other reasons were cited as the main reason only 35 percent of those surveyed said they would marry a Korean again. The biggest complaint was a lack of communication with a spouse, cited by 63 percent. That was followed by in-law problems (60 percent); late nights and a refusal to help with household chores were cited by nearly 50 percent each.

For what it's worth, I don't object to these sort of marriages out of hand. For people who want to get married but find themselves with few options---or who simply find themselves tired of looking---I don't see anything wrong with finding someone through the internet or going through an agency. We've all tried internet dating, haven't we? (Haven't we?) And, hell, Korea and other Asian countries where this sort of international marriage business is popular have a long---and recent---history with matchmaking services. I'm also not naive enough to believe these women are all innocent victims, who didn't come here for money or the chance to live out the "Korean Dream." It says so right in the damn article. But I find it sick that these foreign women are little more than indentured servants, tied to men twice their age and half their IQ, and charged with repopulating a rural Korea that a generation or two before would have thrown them down a well.

For as critical people here can be of Caucasians dating Korean women, often with the implication of an unequal power relationship, there sure is a lot of that going on vis-a-vis Korea's poorer, browner neighbors.

Because I can't think of a better conclusion---that last paragraph would have been a good one---I'll stick these two posts on at the end: go give "City and county, education and marriage" and "Vietnam, Korea's womb colony?" a read, because I pilfered a couple of the articles from them. If you have any other informative links on the topic, please post them in the comment section for further reading.

Festival at Nagan Pear Village on Sunday.

I have no idea if the Naju Pear Blossom Festival is a go this year---it's kind of lame anyway---but if you want to wander around among some pear blossoms, there's a festival pear blossom village (배꽃피는마을) in Suncheon's Nagan-myeon on the 11th and 12th.

따스한 봄 햇살 받고
새싹이 돋아나는 따뜻한 봄날
배꽃피는마을를 사랑하는 모든 분들께
4월11일 배꽃축제에 초대합니다.

작은 음악회 연주에 맞춰
배꽃이 휘날리는 배꽃 길을 산책하며
아름다운 추억담아 가세요.

The village is a few kilometers from both Nagan Folk Village and the town of Beolgyo in Boseong county.

Wow, did you see that fluff piece in the Korea Times about Jeollanam-do and how Gwangju "anchors region of treasure"? It's part of a series running during Gwangju's bid to host the 2015 Summer Universiade. I hope the local government paid the author well for that. Matter of fact, why not go and remind the local government to pay him well for that.

The Korea Times tell us "Korean Discovers Comet for First Time." Strange, I learned about comets in kindergarten.

Gwangju Theater Festival opens today.

Short notice about this, but the Gwangju Theater Festival opens today and runs through the 12th. It will take place at the Gwangju Culture and Art Center in Unam-dong. More information in Korean from the official website.

YouTube says no to real-name system.

Interesting timing, given the last post, but in the Korea Times today is this news:

YouTube, the world's largest video-sharing Web site, said Thursday it has decided not to require South Korean users to use their real names when they register, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The move marks a rejection of a South Korean government policy that requires private information for online users. South Korea is the only country in the world where Internet users are required to input their name and resident registration number before subscribing to portals and other Internet services.

The Web site's decision will allow users to view YouTube content but without being able to post videos or comments.

However, watchers point out that South Korean users will likely be able to post videos on the site without difficulty if they set their country preference to countries other than South Korea.

If you have eight minutes to spare, go watch the video of Park Tae-hwan's gold-medal-winning race that Roboseyo subtitled in English. Instant classic.

Korea's real-name system and implications for Wikipedia?

Big Brother Sitemeter directed me to this post on a wikimedia board alerting users that South Korea will require users of boards and chatrooms with more than 100,000 visitors per day to register with their real names. An editor of the Korean wiki wrote in the above message:

We have to check the number of visitors from South Korea. If we have
more than that, we have to decide if we will allow editing or not from
South Korea.

It's a serious challenge for Wikipedia.

Perhaps we'll know exactly who's behind all those edits to the Yi Sun-shin page. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales did touch on the topic last fall, in a speech at the International Conference on Global Entrepreneurship in Seoul and in a subsequent interview with the Hankyoreh. For an overview to the implementation of Korea's real-name system, take a look at this Gusts of Popular Feeling post.

Korean teacher arrested for raping students, had seven prior sexual assault convictions.

I'll just post the whole article and let you ponder again why education officials and media insist on targeting native speaker teachers when it sounds like there are bigger threats out there:

A temporary teacher at a middle school in North Chungcheong Province was arrested for raping and molesting female teenagers, police said Wednesday. He had previously been convicted on seven counts of sexual assault and other crimes.

Police said the contract-based teacher, identified as Min, sexually assaulted an unidentified middle school student in February at a motel in the province. Police said the student was a runaway at the time and the 31-year-old approached her, saying he would rent a motel room to be used as a temporary ``shelter.''

He is also accused of molesting another teenage girl at a karaoke bar the following month, police said.
Police are widening their investigation to find out whether he committed other crimes.

Currently, criminal records of those sentenced to less than three years in prison are removed after five years. As such, schools can't always ascertain the criminal record of would-be teachers.

I'll reiterate that few if any current or prospective native speaker teachers object to the principle of submitting criminal background checks. But if the records of Koreans are wiped clean after five years, why all the moral panic about the foreign menace, and why is nobody questioning the "ethical qualifications" of that much larger demographic? After all, how many cases of sexual misconduct by foreign teachers have you read about? Abuse? Corruption? This case could throw a monkey wrench into the machinery that would bring thousands of Korean "lecturers" in to, as some education officials spin it, eventually replace us.

The article comes to us via Gusts of Popular Feeling. If it wouldn't take so long, I think I would create an updated list of teachers behaving badly.

* Update: Korea Beat has a translation of a lengthier article.

Stephannie White tours Gyeongsan sauna where son was found dead.

On April 3rd, Stephannie White toured the Royal Hawaii sauna in Gyeongsan where her 14-year-old son Michael was found dead last year. The judge ordered it because, as Stephannie wrote to me, there were discrepancies in the statements of the sauna employees. If you're on Facebook you can view the photos and the comments here; if you're not on Facebook, use this link. Not surprisingly, obstruction seemed to be the name of the game during the tour, as has been the story for the past eleven months.

You can read more about Michael's story, and his mother's nightmarish ordeal with the authorities, at her website Mightie Mike. If you have time to spare, give those episodes of Seoul Podcast a listen, too. There are transcripts of the podcasts on the site as well, or you can browse a few excerpts from this post last July.

Shooting at Korean Christian retreat in California.

CBS says one person was killed and three injured in a shooting at a Korean Christian retreat in California.

Mario Lopez of the California Highway Patrol says officers responded to the retreat after hearing a man had shot his wife. He says one person was dead when they arrived.

Police described the shooter as a Korean man in his 70s.

An official said the language barrier was making it difficult to get all the facts and that some nuns from the retreat were very distraught

Greg Gutfeld is garbage, but what else is new.

Fox New's Greg Gutfeld made the headlines last month for what he said about the Canadian military:

In a five-minute segment broadcast March 17, 2009, Gutfeld and his panel satirically mocked Canadian Lieutenant General Andrew Leslie's recent comment that the Canadian military may require a one year "synchronized break" once Canada's mission in Afghanistan ends in 2011. "Meaning, the Canadian military wants to take a breather to do some yoga, paint landscapes, run on the beach in gorgeous white Capri pants," Gutfeld said. "I didn't even know they were in the war," panelist Doug Benson added. "I thought that's where you go if you don't want to fight. Go chill in Canada."

Keeping with the show's satirical theme, the panelists joked about soldiers needing a break for "manicures and pedicures". Gutfeld also jokingly proposed that the United States military should invade Canada, while poking fun at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's ceremonial uniforms.

That style of, um, humor is nothing new, though, and those swine carried on much in the same way two years ago during a wickedly insensitve segment nine days after Cho Seung-hui killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. The panelists joked that he went crazy because he couldn't get any, and suggesting the government start an Ameriwhore program to help fight the war on terror. Sounds like a good idea.



What passes for news and entertainment these days makes me not miss home. I would weep for my country were it not so last week.

And in other newspaper . . . news, more garbage about "unqualified" foreign teachers.

This piece comes to us from Jessica Kim, purported to be a student at the University of Virginia.

Recently, a lot of people have been calling me and emailing me, to the point where I just had to shut down my phone. Some even identify themselves as a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. That's a long social chain.

These random ``friends" who don't have a job or got fired recently have been trying to get in touch with me to ask me about teaching English in Korea. They all say in unison, as if it comes from the Holy Bible, ``I heard all you need is the 'white looks' and you are good to go." I have heard this millions of times already, but every time I hear it I can't help myself from cringing with every single muscle in my forehead. I may need Botox soon even though I'm only in my early 20s.

So why is Korea, the nation that even created a national day to celebrate the beauty and the history of the Korean language, seen as the place to go for those ``native speakers" who have no life goals? The aim of trying to learn English is healthy for the mind and soul ― it's for personal development. However, the situation here is to the point where it's almost an obsession, not to mention an embarrassing one.

Do we really want these ``white-looking" people to just stroll into Korea, who probably scored less than 500 out of 800 on their verbal portion of their SATs or don't even know what they SATs are, to be hailed as kings by Korean parents? This leads to my point: Korean parents need to change their attitudes.

Kim might be interested to know that Korea imported twinkies and this past summer to teach English in public schools. These yellow-looking people hadn't even graduated college, and probably scored, like, 12 on the verbal portion of the SATs. They scored 800 on the math part, though, because yellows are good at math. They were hired because of their Korean heritage, not because of a particularly impressive resume as if one mattered to Korean schools and when the TaLK program couldn't get as many applicants as it planned---because who wouldn't want to come teach in Korea for 25% less than a white person?---they took in basically anyone who applied. Visa regulations, which have been become increasingly strict for English teachers, were found to be relaxed for ethnic Koreans, making it easier for them to come to Korea to sell drugs and race Hondas.

Roboseyo already posted his response to Kim, a letter to the editor that I hope runs as soon as possible. It calls out the Korea Times for publishing anything having to deal with teaching English in Korea, especially if it deals with native speakers. Negativity like Kim's might not be widespread---although we hear this "unqualified" hobby horse trotted regularly, even from coworkers---but publishing her rant in a paper read mainly by Koreans trying to practice their English will speak to enough stereotypes to get those heads nodding approvingly.

I'm in the papers today, talking about English teachers.

Two things I wrote ended up on newspaper websites today. One is in the Korea Herald, the other in the Joongang Ilbo. The Herald piece, titled (not by me) "Stop the scatter-shot approach to English," will become pay-per-view in a little while so I've reprinted it below.

SUNCHEON, Jeollanam-do -- In late-March the government announced it will hire 5,000 additional Korean English teachers this year to teach "practical English" classes in lieu of native speakers. This news first broke in November, when the government said it wanted to hire 4,000 Korean "lecturers" who would teach conversational English in elementary schools, with additional lecturers on the way to secondary schools.

These Korean lecturers would be on one-year contracts and would not hold permanent positions. And unlike "regular" teachers they would not be required to hold teaching certificates but would be hired based on English proficiency, grades, and other factors.

Both plans have been criticized by the Korean Federation of Teachers' Association, many of whose members say the government shouldn't hire "unqualified" teachers who simply speak English well. The introduction of these lecturers has gone hand-in-hand with "Teaching English in English" plans that have been pretty solidly opposed by teachers' unions for a variety of reasons.

However, the plan as presented has created an unfair us-versus-them dynamic between Korean teachers and foreign ones. It has been presented as an antidote to hiring native speakers, who are considered expensive, unqualified, ineffective and potentially dangerous. Ministry of Education official Euh Hyo-jin said, "Foreign native English speakers cannot teach students without Korean teachers, but the newly recruited teachers can teach on their own." This comes a few weeks after an Incheon official said some foreign teachers "were not ethically qualified to teach children," and a few months after the official in charge of native speakers said " ... (native speaker teachers) are neither regular teachers nor lecturers who can conduct classes independently. They are 'assistant teachers,' hence their teaching experience doesn't matter much. Rather, it's better for students to have more new teachers so that they can meet various kinds of foreigners."

When officials make comments like Euh's, it reveals a profound ignorance about who we are and what we actually do in the classroom. Perhaps it was simply a mistranslation of the modal "cannot," but in reality we can and often do teach on our own. Public school teachers are teamed-up with Korean co-teachers, but they frequently do not show up for class or show any interest in contributing to the native speaker's class. Native speaker teachers are often left to design and implement lessons with no input from co-teachers beyond "do what you want" and no support beyond a co-teacher dozing off in the back of the classroom.

Maybe Euh meant that we lack the ability to teach on our own. Is it because of limited Korean-language skills to maintain control and convey important ideas? It would be just as easy to argue, then, that Korean English teachers are equally unable to teach English on their own, not being strong enough in the language to speak it or reliably teach it. Or is it because of a lack of training? Korean English teachers are often unversed in the teaching styles that go hand-in-hand with teaching toward communicative competence.

In reality, these lecturers are not replacing permanent Korean English teachers, but should supplement public elementary schools that often not only lack native English speakers, but proper Korean English teachers as well. In Jeollanam-do I've co-taught with substitute teachers, guidance counselors, music teachers, and physical education instructors. In elementary schools English instruction is often left to homeroom teachers unable or unwilling to teach English. Teachers in the system as a whole have shown resistance to teaching "practical English" and "Teaching English in English," leaving one to wonder where exactly students would pick up these skills if native speakers and Korean "lecturers" are to be excluded.

News of these English lecturers is food for thought about the ultimate direction of English education here, and whether Koreans are interested less in English as a language than as a subject. However, trends have changed so often these past few months, with news about hiring more native speakers, building more English Towns, hiring more Koreans, or even importing cheaper non-native-speakers as teachers. Perhaps when people view this scatter-shot approach as a whole, and not simply as a Korean-versus-foreigner relationship, it will get us closer to a discussion about what "qualified" really means.

God I hate word limits.

The other piece, titled (not by me) "What makes English teachers qualified?" went up on the Joongang Ilbo site this morning. It's the second piece I've written for a new column there, although the piece I did about the sideshows in the World Baseball Classic didn't make it in. I'll admit I winced a little as I read through the latest one. The premise of the new column is a little strange, as I'm supposed to present an overview of opinions expressed on my blog on the latest hot-button issue . . . not opinions expressed by me, though, but rather by my commentors.

The thing is, each blog has its own set of regulars, with little cross-over. People who write here usually don't turn up on The Marmot's Hole, or Roboseyo, or The Grand Narrative, and the same holds true for their regulars. I've accumulated readers who more or less agree with what I write and where I'm coming from, if for no other reason than my loudest critics don't read the blog or comment on it. I do think I get a relatively diverse set of views, well-thought out on all sides. But, I'm not running a model UN, nor do I let my comments go unmoderated or uncensored, thus there's bias inherent in what turns up below each of my posts. While I value my commentors, and am grateful to be exempt from the garbage that pollutes other sites, I'm really not sure if a few paragraphs beneath hours of work really ought to be the centerpiece of a column. Working within a 600-word-limit, then, I would kind of like more room to work my own magic, and introduce my own words to a larger audience, rather than copying and pasting so much of content that might not even have been intended for such wide consumption.

I had hoped the piece would have been prefaced with an introduction about its purpose, and thought it would have been placed with other similar columns by bloggers, but as it appeared this morning it just looked like I was trying to write a column but was too lazy to use my own opinions. I hope to smoothe it out for next time.

Wonder Baby makes me want to die.

Found via An Expat in Korea.

Welcome to Gwangju.

Locals greet members of the 2015 Summer Universiade Evaluation Committee at Gwangju Airport on Monday. The five-person delegation will be inspecting the city for three days to see whether it's suitable to host the collegiate version of the Olympics.







Last summer Gwangju lost the bid for the 2013 games, and there was much weeping for the cameras.

Hepatitis A cases on the rise, probably foreigners' fault.

The Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Family Affairs says, via the Korea Times, that cases of Hepatitis A are on the rise. This year has seen more than a two-fold increase in number of cases over last year. Possible reasons?

Some health experts said young people traveling to countries where the level of hygiene isn't so high, or people eating imported foods contaminated with the virus could be the cause of the prevalence of the disease.

The KDCD advised people traveling to Southeast Asian countries and Africa to have vaccinations, which is the only effective way to prevent it.

Also, the government advised people to wash their hands more often, drink boiled water or ``safe'' water as well as to cook food.

Well, yes, increased travel could be one reason. Perhaps the Korean aversion to handwashing, soap, and flushing toilet paper could be some others.

As was first mentioned on The Marmot's Hole last week, some people are angry that staff at the May 18 National Cemetery in Gwangju have put up a driving range.

lol, what?

소녀시대's Yuri throws out the first pitch at a baseball game in Seoul yesterday.



The nine-member girl group did all kinds of annoying stuff before the game.

Nicholas Cage speaking Korean.

This has been atop Nate.com all day, of Nicholas Cage introducing himself and his movie "Knowing" to Korean audiences. Cage has a special connection to Korea, having married a Korean woman a couple years ago. A Yonhap piece from 2004 had this to say:

Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage expressed a strong attachment to Korea on Monday, calling the homeland of his wife a "part of my home" that has food he likes and values he admires. "I wasn't really able to enjoy vegetables until I discovered Korean vegetables. Kimchi is in my spirit and in my mind, it balances my soul," Cage, 40, said, referring to Korea's spicy pickled vegetables during a press conference in Seoul.

Super Action had a block of Nicholas Cage movies on last September, advertised as under the tagline "한국인이 사랑하는 액션 스타." I'm checking to see if GFN's Michael Simning, a "한국인이 사랑하는 비큰 어브 라이트," has been the recipient of such accolades. I'm also checking to see if he said that about kimchi.

Beautiful flowers in Suncheon.

Suncheon was beautiful on Saturday, with cherry blossoms and rape flowers all along Dongcheon. Here's the entrance to the Duckie Boat harbor.




Heading back the other way is a new addition: scaffolding that will become a rose garden later this spring.











It's not that I'm unattractive, it's just that I significantly detract from the beauty of my surroundings.






I think they should change the name away from "rape flower." Not that I'm offended, it just makes some awkward conversation. This blog isn't about jokes about violence or sexual assault, so I'll keep comments like "We saw a lot of rape along the river," "do your friends have rape at their house?" and "do you want to go to the rape festival in Hadong next weekend?" to myself. To be fair, though, the plays on words we made were based almost entirely on the spit-take-at-the-caption photo in the Chosun Ilbo on April 3rd.



This sign made me laugh.



It wasn't because of the cartoon, but rather because it was three meters up.



But when my girlfriend was demonstrating that people could hurt themselves trying to walk along that right side, she smacked her head off the bridge, so there you go.














The evening began at Suncheon's artisest cafe, Hwasoomok.



The Frappuccinos are ridiculously good---as are the ambience, the old photo albums on the shelves, and the looks of the rest of the menu---so make sure you stop in when the next time you're in the neighborhood.




Thus concludes pictures of Suncheon's cherry blossoms, and further evidence that there's no finer town in all the land.

Mmm, 산낙지볶음밥!

On Saturday night I had dinner with my girlfriend at a restaurant that I had theretofore only visited with my school. It's one of Suncheon's quote-unquote famous restaurants, and is designated so by the government, and serves a few types of octopus dishes. If you visit 여수명신낙지 I recommend the 산낙지볶음밥, octopus fried rice, though it ends up being more like bibimbap.






It's excellent, and besides all the food you see there---including mustard kimchi (갓김치), a Yeosu specialty---you'll also get exceptionally-friendly treatment from the staff. The restaurant is in Suncheon's Geumdang neighborhood, behind Geumdang High School and about a block-and-a-half north of the Chinese restaurant 소평 other foreigners like. There's a street map here, in Korean. The 산낙지볶음밥 for two will cost 20,000 won. You'll be asked how spicy you want it, and I strongly recommend getting it mild.

Yeosu was pretty yesterday.

Not enough to make me regret skipping out on Suncheon's flowers, but I hope the azaleas on Yeongchuisan hold out a little longer. Here are some pictures stolen off the wire.

A reader brings news that a Korean partner in a defunct hedge-fund company that scammed people out of US$200 million is in court in Florida, after being caught in Seoul trying to flee to South America.

"Little drops of water make the mighty ocean” at work in Gangjin.

The Joongang Ilbo has a story about a community scholarship fund at work in Gangjin county, putting local kids through school with small donations made by thousands of donations. Over ten billion won has been collected since 2005.

The number of students who garnered admission to universities in the Seoul Metropolitan area surged to 33 this year from 12 in 2005. Gangjin High School saw some of its students enter Seoul National University for the past four straight years.

The typical agricultural area of Gangjin has a population of only 40,000. It stands 221st among the nation’s 230 administrative districts (including cities, counties and districts) in terms of its degree of financial independence. Poor education and related investments used to prompt residents to leave town. While the population had surpassed 130,000 between 1960 and 1970, it tumbled to the 40,000 range in early 2000.

Amid these conditions, Hwang Ju-hong, the county governor, made a resolution to revive the town through education. He established the scholarship foundation in April 2005 under the slogan, “Let’s prevent locals from leaving the town in search of a better education.”

Since then, up to 2 billion won was collected. Donations have become an everyday event for the residents, who range from farmers to civil servants, policemen to entrepreneurs and senior citizens.

. . .

The foundation gives out a combined 2 billion won every year to elementary, middle and high schools in the town. Students who get accepted to prestigious universities or show excellent academic performance receive up to 4 million won each. Last winter, 30 third-year middle school students had the chance to study English in the United States and the Philippines thanks to the scholarship fund.

With the education revival, the rate of population reduction, which stood at 8.79 percent in 2002, has fallen to 0.45 percent this year.

The Big O in Yeosu.

Yeosu's been on a kick to get English nicknames for its attractions ahead of the 2012 Yeosu Expo. Odong-do, a popular site for foreigners and locals alike, will be "The Big O," and the islands that comprise Dadohae Maritime National Park will be known as "Coastal Triangle."

It's an attempt to create and build awareness of local attractions among foreigners, though there's nothing really on the island that would necessitate such an attention-grabbing name. I think a more helpful step in that process would be to have foreign-language information available on why these sites are significant and how to get there if they are. On the Yeosu government site you can't get information on how to visit or why you should.

Is it really so hard, or so much an affront to one's pride, to allow native English-speakers in on the naming process? The campaign to name the islands was posted in March on the Jeollanam-do government page, in Korean. Similar naming campaigns for one of Yeosu's outlying islands and for the Gwangju English-language radio station were also open only to Koreans.

North Korea launches rocket; isn't intercepted, crashes into ocean.

On the off-chance you're not following the news, read up on it here. Korea Times initial report here, New York Times article here.

So this is the name they decided to use?

Out of all the English, half-English, and bad English out there, this is what one Suncheon internet cafe decided to go with?



Challenger was a NASA space shuttle that exploded during launch in 1986, killing all seven people inside.

Flowers n'at last weekend in Suncheon.

Here are some photos taken in Suncheon last weekend. I had planned to take in the cherry blossoms, but unlike last year's beautiful display, they were only about half-way out when March rolled around.





Traffic was backed up near the cafe Hwasoomok because of a little festival on that day.



The sounds of noisy amateur singing filled the west side of the city.



Traffic thinned out on the other side.



One of my favorites:




A new bar in a new building, this is Suncheon's latest German-named hof. You'll see the "English Virus" hagwon to the right.



One of the reasons you should come to Suncheon is to eat Hansot (한솥) doshirak (like bento). Yeah, they have these places all over Korea, but they didn't have them in Gangjin so I went through some withdrawal in 2006-07. My favorite is "Chicken Mayo" (치킨마요), which comes in a box like this:



Inside is chicken, rice, and some type of noodle. You get a packet of soy sauce, a packet of mayonaise, and you mix it all together. It sounds nasty to describe, but it's very good. Actually lots on the menu is good.



Finished.



The Hansot is across the street from Suncheon National University. There's another one down the street from Suncheon First College.

And the evening concluded with a trip to Yogerpresso (shut up) for a waffle. Waffles and coffee is a popular combination nowadays, and you'll find it at a lot of other coffee shops in town.