Memorial service for murdered Gwangju student.

A memorial service was held on the 25th for the Gwangju National University of Education student killed earlier in the month while on an exchange program in eastern Russia. Some 300 people gathered on campus on Thursday morning:



As is the style in Korea, photographers were quite close (1, 2, 3) to capture all the grief on film:





"Funeral porn" is the indelicate name given to these types of photographs that fill the online news sites each time there's a newsworthy funeral, and demonstrate the importance placed on public displays of emotion and mourning. Yonhap has a two-minute video from the funeral home.

His name is released in the latest articles, and is written on the banner above, and in a comment on the 27th "Pakou" wrote:

I'm super sad. The kid that was killed was a very nice guy. We taught English together this summer in Gokseong. My prayers to his family.

After the murder Gwangju National University of Education said it was halting its exchange programs with Russia; from KBS:

Gwangju National University of Education has decided to suspend its exchange programs with Russia after one of its students was killed by a group of Russian youths last week.

The university said Monday that it decided to suspend its program with Altai State University in Barnaul, Russia, in the wake of the recent incident, adding that it is also carefully reviewing whether to carry out Gwangju’s other overseas exchange programs that are usually conducted during vacation periods.

There is certainly plenty of reason to think the attack was racially motivated, and other articles have said Kang wasn't the first Korean student to be killed in Russia.

Australian referee Hewish needs police protection in Vancouver after Korean threats.

The Australian referee who disqualified the Korean women's short-track team in the 3,000-meter relay now requires police protection. The Australian.com.au looks at the threats made by angry Korean fans against Jim Hewish:

AUSTRALIAN short track referee Jim Hewish is under police protection in Vancouver.
Hewishr raised the ire of the Korean speedskating team and its fans by disqualifying its women's 3000m relay on Thursday.

A bomb threat was made by a disgruntled fan against the Australian embassy in Seoul the next day but was later described as a hoax. However it is understood that threats have also been made against Hewish personally and his house in Sydney has been placed under guard.

.
Yes, there was a bomb threat made to the Australian embassy in Seoul:

Major Korean internet news website Joins.com reported the embassy was searched for 40 minutes and five staff were evacuated.

Officials at the embassy confirmed the incident with AAP, a staff member saying it turned out to be a hoax but "Korean authorities responded very quickly and it was resolved".

Joins.com reported Kim was angry that Australian short track speed-skating judge Jim Hewish had disqualified the Korean team from the women's 3000m relay final after their last skater crossed the line first on Wednesday (Vancouver time).

Hewish was the referee who disqualified Kim Dong-sung in 2002, a decision that gave Ohno the gold, and the Korean coach was prepared for that:

"Before the race, I told the players to be careful because the chief referee was the same one who disqualified Kim Dong-sung (at the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002). But it happened again,'' Choi said.

Some Korean netizens called for a boycott of Australian products and put up contact information to the Australian Amateur Ice Racing Council, believing, like they did in the aftermath of their 2006 World Cup loss, that a large number of protest letters would force a rematch. Others posted Hewish's address, including a map to his house



This latest news come via commenter ElCanguro on a Marmot's Hole on The Marmot's Hole, and a follow-up Marmot's Hole post, and he wrote on my site:

I wonder if the netizens realise that they've blown any chances of Pyeongchang getting the winter Olympics anytime soon or Korea getting the 2022 World Cup with their childish, passive-aggressive displays behind the computer.

Indeed, there is a disturbing trend of Korean threats and overreaction to perceived slights in international competition. A Korean commenter on my post yesterday wrote:

There is always e-mail threatening after any events (sports, business closing tables, and etc). But many times, I see some of those threatening pictures as the expression and voice of anger, requesting, and asking for the justice. I see this kinds of threatening everywhere; some are small and some are big. With these kinds of expression of media or posts should be viewed as voices instead of annoying things.

Rather than appreciating "asking for the justice," I suspect event organizers will be alarmed that their officials are subject to threats and violence should a decision go against Korea. I've had to write countless times that no, the actions of these enthusiastic netizens are not representative of all Koreans, but it should be the responsibility of Koreans as a whole to preach against these outbursts and go through the proper channels to find "justice," if they continue to feel listening to a referee's decision is unjust or an improper channel. Then again, when we see how Korean lawmakers express themselves in the National Assembly when they feel slighted, there might be issues larger than simply sports.




A small collection of netizen artwork found on blogs and messageboards.

Korean government to invest in unpopular sports to get more medals. What about hockey?

South Korea has done pretty well so far in the Vancouver Olympics and is, at the time of this post, seventh in the medal count and already matching the Associated Press prediction of five gold. But the government has decided to try and get more in the future by investing in unpopular sports, a plan ultimately aimed at winning the 2018 Winter Olympics for Pyeongchang. From the Chosun Ilbo on Tuesday:

The government plans to spend nearly W2.1 billion to nurture young athletes in 15 sports that are unpopular in Korea but have the potential to achieve strong performances on the international stage, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said Monday.

It is the first time the government will set aside a budget to promote unpopular sports. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is working on a detailed plan, aimed at discovering and nurturing the next Mo Tae-bum or Lee Sang-hwa, the first-ever Korean speed skaters to win Olympic gold medals.

What caught my attention in this latest article, though was the list of fifteen unpopular sports

To be included in the 15 sports are skating, skiing, fencing, hockey, boxing, judo, wrestling, shooting, cycling, weight lifting, gymnastics, canoeing, rowing and yachting.

specifically, hockey. From neither the English nor the Korean versions is it clear whether they mean ice or field hockey. Though I've never heard a thing about field hockey while I lived in Korea, the women apparently have had success: winning three out of seven Hockey Asia Cups (and placing in the top three six times), two of the last three Women's Junior Hockey World Cups, four of the last five Junior Asia Cups, and earning either gold or silver at six of the seven Asian Games. The men earned a silver at the 2000 Summer Olympics, and the women in 1988 and 1996.

If they're talking about ice hockey, that's intriguing. I've wondered aloud if the success Koreans have had at skating might encourage people to get interested in ice hockey. But it's been said by many that Koreans aren't really interested in sports, they're interested in Koreans doing well at sports. People here aren't fans of figure skating, soccer, or short-track, they're fans of Kim Yu-na, the national team, and the perennial medal-winners. The lack of interest in the domestic soccer league compared to the kimcheerleading when the national team is on is evidence of that.

Before this plan gets too far along, somebody had better tell the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism that just because ice hockey is "unpopular" in South Korea doesn't mean it isn't highly competitive internationally, and that Korea has an incredibly long way to go to catch up. The men's national team is ranked 30th in the world and the women 27th, neither good enough for an Olympic appearance or even a pre-Olympic qualification tournament. Wikipedia has some information about the men's national team in an article that says South Korea beat Thailand 92-0 in a game in 1998, and that in 16 games against Japan, Korea has never won and has been outscored 150 to 23. Korea does have two professional men's teams that compete in Asia League Ice Hockey, though neither has ever won the championship, and people have said the level of competition is comparable to North American juniors or the ECHL. An ECHLer shared his experiences in a 2005 article:

Like everything else in South Korea, it took Liebenow some time to adapt to a new style of hockey.

"It's a lot different," said Liebenow, who played in South Korea from October through February last season. "You play on Olympic-sized rinks. It's pretty much like trying to land a 747 on a hockey rink. They're huge."

Not only are the rinks bigger, there is absolutely no fighting, no way to retaliate if a player feels an opponent takes a cheap shot. Liebenow said Korean hockey is more about skating, but the overall quality of the game isn't as good.

"They were paying me to do it," said Liebenow, who first heard about the Asia League through former Condor Steve Howard. "The experience was easily a 10, even with the hockey being so bad. I had an awesome time."

There's really no way a national team from South Korea will be competing at the international level with a North American or European squad anytime soon. Size is one issue. Looking at the national team roster from last spring (.pdf file), we see no players are taller than 5'11" and only two are heavier than 185 pounds. The the Canadian roster from the 2009 World Championships shows there's only three skaters under 6'0" and one under 200 pounds. Of course size isn't everything, and smaller players can have success by being fast and fundamentally-sound, but small defensemen will be overmatched against even medium-sized forwards, and smallish forwards will get thrown around by much larger defensemen who, don't forget, often move around pretty quickly themselves.

Experience is another issue. Ice hockey is an expensive, time-consuming sport, and thus one off-limits to Korean students. The rigors of the Korean education system make it just about impossible for students to even have hobbies---sleep and computer games are the two most common---let alone get good at sports. Conversely, players for the top teams in the world learn to skate just as soon as they can walk, and spend their whole lives playing hockey. When students reach college and finally have the time and the freedom for recreation, the best athletes in North America and Europe are already being drafted by NHL teams.

Korea's grab for medals isn't just about pride, but about its need to diversify if it's to bring the 2018 Winter Olympics to Pyeongchang in order to boost national pride:

Among the 31 medals earned by Korean athletes in the Winter Games up to the 2006 Turin Olympics 29 medals including all 17 gold medals came from short track speed skating.

All the medalists this year are in skating events as well.

With all these medals concentrated in one event a shortcoming has cropped up in Korea's bid to host the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in Gangwon Province.
Experts said this caused Korea to lack versatility as a potential host for the international sports festival.
Kim Jin-sun, governor of Gangwon Province and co-chair of the 2018 Pyeongchang Bid Committee said at that time that the bidding process was not easy since not many people even knew that Korea is a country that participates in various winter sports.
However, it seems that the Vancouver Winter Olympics could change Korea's reputation and status as a winter sports powerhouse since Korean skaters have captured two golds and two silvers outside of the short track category as of Thursday.

It's a backwards approach, trying to promote sports for the purpose of attracting the Winter Olymipcs, and one similar to the one the government has taken toward trying to produce a home-grown Nobel Prize winner for the sake of producing a home-grown Nobel Prize winner. It's also backwards to try and develop hockey and other sports for the sake of medals when the interest in sports isn't there. Trying to promote interest in hockey and develop local talent isn't a bad idea, and trying to boost the level of competition on its domestic teams is a good thing. However, the government will need to rethink its push for a championship in "unpopular" hockey, and look first at finding a way to keep the sport viable among a youth and public that can't easily support it.



Jim Paek (백지선) is one of two Korean-born players to skate in the NHL. Raised in Canada, Paek played a few seasons your Pittsburgh Penguins in the early 1990s, and now coaches in the US.

Continued exaggeration of President Obama's views on Korean education.

President Obama's admiration for Korean education is in the news again, via a Korea Times article "Obama Praises Korean Education Again":

U.S. President Barak Obama has lauded South Korea, again, to encourage Americans to do more on the educational front.

In a speech he delivered in Las Vegas on Friday, he said America cannot succeed in science if India and South Korea produces more scientists and engineers, according to Yonhap News Agency Saturday.

I've written about Obama's "praise" of South Korea's education system three times in the past:

* March 11, 2009: "President Obama likes Korea's education system, sort of."
* March 22, 2009: "Obama didn't say what you thought he said about Korean education."
* December 22, 2009: "Don't worry so much about what President Obama said about Korea's education system."

You'll notice a common theme there, one I'll talk about today, too: the local media exaggerates Obama's compliments, then uses those exaggerations to levy its own criticism of Korea's education system.

Looking at the transcript of the Las Vegas speech, for the exact quotation, since the paper doesn't give it, he said:

If India or South Korea are producing more scientists and engineers than we are, we will not succeed.

That's the only mention of Korea in the 4,000-plus-word speech, hardly enough "praise" to make headlines.

Similarly, the local papers carried news of Obama's lauding of Korean education last spring, after a speech he made in March. The Korea Times wrote on March 11th, "Obama Lauds Korea's Education of Children," and the Chosun Ilbo wrote the next day "Obama Cites Korea for Educational Excellence." (A November 24th Times article is titled "Obama Lauds Korea for Education Zeal.") He did have some nice things to say, sort of, about Korea's school system, though if you look at his actual remarks you wonder how focused he really was on South Korea.

Looking at the transcript of the speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Congress last March, available from the New York Times, we'll see he mentioned Korea twice:

Now, even as we foster innovation in where our children are learning, let's also foster innovation in when our children are learning. We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day. That calendar may have once made sense, but today it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children -- listen to this -- our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea -- every year. That's no way to prepare them for a 21st century economy. That's why I'm calling for us not only to expand effective after-school programs, but to rethink the school day to incorporate more time -– whether during the summer or through expanded-day programs for children who need it. (Applause.)

Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas. (Laughter.) Not with Malia and Sasha -- (laughter) -- not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom. If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America.

I would hardly call that "lauding" or citing Korea for "education excellence." In fact, if I may plagiarize myself a bit from my March 22nd post, the second mention doesn't really look like a compliment at all, but more like somebody roughly saying "some place you don't know or care about is doing this, so of course we can, too!" Not to say Barack Obama doesn't care about South Korea, but the first example reads more like a generic one-off comment than a thoughtful, exhaustive assessment of the Korean public school system.

At the time, however, some in the local English-language media took those exaggerated compliments as an opportunity to criticize Korea's education system, and criticize what they considered Obama's ignorance of the flaws of Korea's system. Indeed it looked like some in the media---a media that is quite hard on Korea's education system---put words in Obama's mouth simply to discredit them for the sake of argument. The March 11th Korea Times piece concluded:

Obama's remarks came as a surprise to many South Koreans as the country's education system has been under constant public criticism due to its lack of creativity and heavy dependence on private tutoring.

Choi Yong-hearn, a Times columnist I've made fun of a few times before, read far too much into Obama's speech in a March 17th piece:

The Korean school system has all kinds of problems. Many Korean people are ashamed of their schools. Many students feel that their schools are ``hell'' even today.

However, President Obama admires South Korea's schools and their products, educated manpower. He praised the Korean students who are competitive among students in advanced nations.

Korean students' performance is known to be superb, especially in the fields of mathematics and science. American teachers are amazed at Korean students' math and science scores. Obama's recent statement is just a reflection of the American people's admiration of Korean schools.

You can revisit the speech yourself to look for evidence of "admiration" on the part of the American people or President Obama. I'll give you the answer: there isn't any.

Here's a March 12th Chosun Ilbo cartoon I've reprinted a couple times. It picks up on one of the president's messages, that American students should spent more time in school, and interprets that as his desire to completely adopt a Korean system:


The two girls are the president's daughters, who he mentioned by name next to South Korea in his speech last March

Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas. (Laughter.) Not with Malia and Sasha -- (laughter) -- not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom. If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America.

and the two Korean students in the cartoon, carrying bags full of books for their many cramschools ("학원가방"), are telling them not to believe everything he says about Korea's education system. Of course, if you go back to his comments, there is nothing to indicate he's interested in forcing his kids into such a Korean system, a system that some might say amounts to child abuse by keeping children away from home, forcing them into cramschools late into the night, depriving them of sleep, and preparing them for little more than regurgitating answers when it's time to sit for standardized tests.

We last heard about President Obama's reported praise for Korean schools in December, when he visited South Korea and met with President Lee Myung-bak. The Korea Herald followed a familiar pattern, taking the opportunity to write about President Lee's "dissatisfaction" with education here:

President Lee Myung-bak yesterday called for more efforts to improve education as disputes are rising over elite high schools and university admission.
He also said he felt sorry to hear U.S. President Barack Obama praise Korea's educational system after their meeting last month.

"I felt sorry ... I am very dissatisfied (with our education)," Lee said during a policy report from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

"There have been many changes but the changes have yet to be stabilized, causing much concern for the people."

CNN.com picked up the story, but for the sake of brevity I won't reprint it here.

That's because I'd like to, instead, look at the worst case of misunderstanding in the local media, an opinion piece from last December by a Korean English teacher in Gwangju. Titled "Dear President Obama," it repeats all the familiar exaggerations and distortions, presents them as the president's own ideas, and seemingly brings them up only to criticize Korea's own education system and the president's apparent ignorance of it. Perhaps he considers himself clever for getting his name in the paper, but the piece merely demonstrates his own ignorance. Read the whole thing; here are a few choice excerpts:

Mr. President, you have often eulogized about Korea's education system.

What would you say, however, if American children were driven into a hell of private tutoring, juggling their time by going to four or five different private institutes for piano, Taekwondo, math, English and writing lessons after school?

. . .

A few weeks ago, I was surprised and pleased to hear that you lauded Korean parents for their enthusiasm for children's education and Korean students for their zeal and perseverance to attain high scores and to enter good high schools and universities, in triggering the campaign of ``Educate to Innovate." What an embarrassment for the President of the United States, the most powerful country in the world, to tout the Korean educational system!

The writer's true agenda comes through in this paragraph, which relates in no way to anything the president said, might have said, or remotely considered saying:

Dear President Obama, is it okay if I were to ask you how much you really understand the Korean educational system or the real circumstances surrounding English language classes in Korea? I wonder if you know how many students there are in a typical English classroom in Korea. Do you think it is possible for one teacher to effectively teach one-to-one interaction for the purpose of learning communicative competence with more than forty students in a class? Do you realize that Koreans are some of the poorest in the world at effectively communicating in English even though they are exposed to English classes for more than 10 years during their elementary and secondary school education? Do you know why Koreans are so poor at English speaking? I wonder if you know that Korea has had no Nobel Prize laureates in science till now.

The writer, Choi Tae-hwan, is one who rebutted one of my first appearances in the Korea Times back in 2006, though he got my name wrong while doing it. It would be very enjoyable to take Choi to task for his tangential points, but that's beyond the scope of this post. The point is, if these reporters and writers actually took a look at the president's remarks on Korea, we'd have a lot fewer headlines lauding this and citing that. And you wouldn't have people like Choi Tae-hwan writing stupid shit like this for their own ends:

Mr. President! Is it true that you consider Korea to be a good role model for American educational innovation? Do you really want American foreign language classrooms to be jammed with more than 40 students? Are you willing to spend a great deal of money on your children's private tutoring for many hours every day? Do you hope American students will be trained to be exam machines for high scores through sacrificing their creativity and humanity?

Now where the fuck did he say or imply "I hope American students will be trained to be exam machines for high scores through sacrificing their creativity and humanity"?

You'll excuse me for flying off the handle with Choi, but there's no sense in continuing to be so intentionally misinformed about President Obama's opinion of Korean education. It's time for Koreans to acknowledge the strengths of their education system---and indeed they do exist---without taking any compliment of it to mean a desire to take things to extremes the way South Koreans tend to do. It's also time for those in the local media to approach a discussion of Obama and Korean education with sophistication, and not as an opportunity to criticize Korean schools or Obama's perceived ignorance of them.

Disappointing portrayal of native speaker English teacher in Bandhobi.

Gusts of Popular Feeling has an excellent post up about Bandhobi (반두비), a 2009 Korean movie about a 17-year-old Korean girl and migrant worker. Today's post looks at one of the film's other foreign characters, an English teacher at a local cram school. You'll need to give the whole post a read, but the main idea is that the movie unfortunately couldn't refrain from hateful stereotypes of foreign English teachers even while trying to be progressive in its depiction of a migrant worker. The English teacher, who as often happens in Korean movies and television shows isn't even played by a native English speaker, leers at his students and considers them "sweet." This exchange follows at the school, after the Bangledeshi tells his friend Min-seo what the teacher "Haines" means by that:

Min-seo: Hi Haines.
Haines: Oh, Min-seo. How is it going?
Min-seo: You said the Korean girls are sweet, uh?
Haines: Yeah.
Min-seo: What’s the meaning?
Haines: Well, they are gentle, kind, cute
Min-seo: and?
Haines: …and…?
Min-seo: Easy to handle [have?], like a whore?
Haines: No! I didn’t mean that --

The Korean high school student then sexually assaults him by grabbing and squeezing his testicles.



Last June The Grand Narrative wrote, in a post calling the movie "the most interesting Korean movie you'll see all year":

Given that it otherwise aims to transcend and/or educate viewers about such issues as racism, illegal immigration, and possibly even teenage sexuality, then it would be both ironic and quite a pity if it resorted to gross stereotypes of foreign male English teachers in the process.

Ironic indeed, and it's far more than "disappointing" that the movie played into one disgusting stereotype of foreign men while attempting to challenge others. The idea---one not supported by statistics or evidence---that foreign English teachers are sexual predators preying on their students and on Korean women in general has been circulated by internet hate groups like the Anti-English Spectrum (and indeed is the foundation of their entire movement), has been given support by internet and mainstream media, and has been featured on television shows in the past as well. We will likely have to wait a little while longer before we see a positive portrayal of a native speaker English teacher on TV or in the movies, a character who actually speaks English and isn't depicted as a buffoon, a drug user, a pervert, or as a menace to society.

Read the rest of today's Gusts of Popular Feeling post for further commentary on this portrayal.

Bank of Korea to make it easier for Koreans to use ATM cards abroad.

Found via @chosunbimbo is this article from the Chosun Ilbo; an excerpt:

Korean travelers can use their debit cards to withdraw money from ATMs in the U.S. and Southeast Asia next year. This has only been possible so far with credit cards.

The Bank of Korea on Sunday said it is negotiating a joint ATM network with central and commercial banks in Southeast Asia countries and the U.S., which are popular destinations for Koreans.

Once the ATM network is established, it will be possible for debit card holders to look at their account balance and withdraw money from ATMs abroad.

I hadn't realized Koreans faced any obstacles getting or using their debit cards abroad. Many expats, though, find it difficult or impossible to get a functioning international debit card, ostensibly because banks are afraid of foreigners withdrawing their money abroad and circumventing transfer fees and the limits in place on how much can be sent overseas. What I mean by international debit card, since somebody asked me last time, is simply a card issued by your bank that works not only at domestic ATMs but at overseas ones as well. In my case, mine had a Visa Plus logo on the back, which meant it was compatable at machines worldwide that shared that logo.

I had the good fortune of having a cooperative person at Korea Exchange Bank (외환은행) set up my account in 2005 and give me a working international debit card for only a small fee. Surprisingly, I had it replaced no questions asked in Gwangju in 2007. I successfully used it in the United States, Japan (at 7-11), China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Vietnam, and have heard countless times from other teachers that KEB is the most hassle-free bank for expats.

In any event, some expats have found that banks refuse cards based on government regulations that, according to a Joongang Ilbo article from January 2008, don't exist.

The difficulties foreigners living in Korea have obtaining international debit cards and local credit cards are a perpetual source of frustration for expatriates.
While some banks even tell customers that “new” Ministry of Finance regulations prevent them from issuing international debit cards to foreigners, there are no such rules, according to a ministry official.

My fiancee was denied an international debit card a couple times from Gwangju Bank, and was told foreigners can't get them. An article in the Korea Times from December 2008 said that foreigners do have access to international debit cards:

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

Clearly some banks don't comply, and we talked about that in a post on my site. Occasionally, when expats do manage to get one, they go overseas only to find it doesn't work. I put up a poll on Dave's ESL Cafe in December, 2008, asking if users were able to get an international debit card, to which 36% responded they were either refused one or were given one that didn't work. Perhaps a fairly small number, but in my opinion about 36 percentage-points too high.

I can appreciate banks trying to adhere to rules and government regulations they may believe to exist---or may invent on the spot because they don't know the answer---but I do object to banks making it harder for expats to access their money. And, well, to banks making it harder for Koreans to access it as well.

Being a Korean reporter doesn't look easy.

The Los Angeles Times' John Glionna writes today about what is essentially prolonged hazing of cub reporters in Korea, an orientation that serves in part to prepare for the demands of round-the-clock reporting. Here's one local wire-service reporter in the article:

"Think about Haiti," he said. "If that kind of large-scale disaster happens, reporters might not be prepared for those circumstances without tough training."

That tough training, the article says, includes extreme binge drinking, and domineering seniors, and long stretches without sleep:

The young college graduate acknowledges that she has a job with pretty demanding hours -- like 3:30 a.m. to 3:30 a.m.

Sometimes, to get any shut-eye at all, she shares a bed with a bunch of other trainees. Then there's the minder who rules her every moment, even in the shower, not to mention the marathon drinking sessions to get her in fighting shape.

At 23, she's a cub reporter slogging her way through a grueling round-the-clock journalism training program that often plays out more like a college fraternity hazing. It's a sink-or-swim test of willpower and stamina designed to prepare young wire service, newspaper and television writers for survival in South Korea's no-holds-barred news culture.

I found this via Monster Island, who makes a good point in his post:

Just like so many other industries in Korea, this one requires camel-going-through-a-needle effort to get in, and this fosters a sense of entitlement among some of those who succeed. It also can lead to resentment against those who did not get there based on their own hard work, wits, sweat, and sleep deprivation (e.g., privileged kids or Westerners, depending on the industry).

I've run into a few Westerners who work in Korean media, in various capacities, but I never heard any talk about facing resentment for not going through this initiation. The language barrier ensures that foreign reporters are kept off that track anyway, and because Korea's English-language media is run by and aimed at Koreans, foreign reporters are generally kept out of the thick of things.

I wonder what's makes "South Korea's no-holds-barred news culture" unique, or if it's more accurate to say this hazing has less to do with news culture and more to do with Korean culture. Confucius preached the importance of ceremony, and people who have spent time in the very Neo-Confucian South Korea will have noticed the legacy. Having worked in Korean schools I've seen the ceremonies to welcome new teachers, to see off old ones, and to mark the beginning and end of semesters. Hell, not even an intramural volleyball game can begin without saluting the flag and hearing a speech from the principal. And there's ritualized binge drinking to accompanies all of that. The significance of ceremony and ritual is reinforced, I'd argue, by the militarization that seeps into many aspects of Korean culture (military service is mandatory for Korean men, after all) which dovetails nicely with Neo-Confucianism in that order and a senior-junior relationship are of utmost importance.

One civilian institution where we see the influence of militarism is the school, and indeed the reason I thought of ceremony as soon as I saw this LA Times piece is because I just read about "graduation ceremonies gone wild" that not only marked the occassion but included pain, suffering, and bullying that unfortunately don't seem out of place in Korean schools:

Over the weekend, the internet community was shaken when naked photos of some 40 teenagers surfaced. Young boys and girls, all naked, were pictured piling up in a human pyramid and other forms of physical group punishment.

The occasion turned out to be a "graduation wrap-up party" in a middle school in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province, led by some 20 high school seniors who threatened their victims verbally and physically.

The blackmail and violence was not just a one-off event, but have occurred over the past few years and have become increasingly violent, according to the victims. The seniors also used to frequently extort them of their money.

Some basic Googling on the topic of Korean cub reporter training turned up nothing else, so I'm glad Glionna introduced us to the topic. I'd like to see more analysis into why Korean outlets are going to such extremes---it's not as if Koreans are the only reporters with tough schedules---and how that's connected to not only the importance of ceremony here, but also to the tendency for these ceremonies to get carried away.

Gwangju student murdered in Russia by group of young thugs.

Very sad news as a university student from Gwangju died in Russia on Thursday as a result of injuries sustained in an assault three days earlier. KBS has the story; an excerpt:

Local investigators said that the male Korean student, identified by his surname Kang, was walking down the street in the Siberian city of Barnaul on Monday with a female friend when the attack ensued.

Doctors at the hospital where Kang was transported to said Kang was placed in intensive care, where he died on Thursday from his injuries.

Kang, a sophomore at a university in Gwangju, had been taking part in an exchange program at a university in Barnaul near Russia’s border with Kazakhstan.

Local police said three suspects, aged between ten and 20, have been arrested and are being investigated for aggravated assault.

A knife was used in the attack, Russian sources report, via KBS. Yonhap says he was a student at Gwangju National University of Education (광주교육대학교), and that the school president accompanied the student's parents to Russia on the 18th. Arirang says Korean students were killed in Russia in 2005 and 2007.

Some photos and an interview in Moon Living Abroad in South Korea.

Suncheon Bay, seen from Yongsan Observatory.

Last June I was pleased to get an email from Jonathan Hopfner of Reuters asking if I'd like to contribute some photographs and an interview to a new guidebook about Korea. In January I finally saw the final result, the first edition of
Moon Living Abroad in South Korea. Twelve of my photographs of Jeollanam-do appeared throughout the book, many of which you've seen on this blog before.


Green tea fields in Boseong county. A slice of this picture serves as the header on my blog.


Canola and cherry blossoms in Suncheon in March 2008. Suncheon, my home for two years, is especially pretty along the river each spring.


Suncheon's Jorye-dong, seen from Bonghwasan.


No, you go home.  A woman at a rally in Gwangju, May 2008, protesting the import of U.S. beef to Korea. 


A rice paddy surrounding Gangjin-eup, Gangjin county, where I lived from August 2006 to August 2007.

There are a few others throughout the book, and a short interview with me on pages 218-219. When asked why I chose Jeollanam-do over Seoul, where just about everyone goes to teach, I answered:

I actually spent a year in Bundang, a trendy district in a satellite city of Seoul, before coming down here. Looking back, I think it was actually a little more, well, culture shocking going to Bundang than Jeollanamdo because of the appearance of close similarity up there. I'm sure there's a proper term for it, but the closest I can get is to say, "Look up 'Uncanny Valley' and apply it to Christmas, coffee, and pizza."

The "Uncanny Valley" analogy is something I've repeated a few times on this blog. I'm not saying Koreans are humanoids or anything, but rather the point is I happen to think that plenty of expats---not including the immature and the maladjusted---react just fine to the unfamiliar "Korean" aspects of the country. It's the things that at first glance look familiar---Christmas, pizza, English, "westernization"---that are the most jarring. I found plenty of that in Bundang.

Moon has put out books on South Korea before, ones aimed at travelers. I flipped through one in my local Borders and was surprised to find a ton of information on Jeollanam-do, considering most guidebooks---and, admittedly, most expats---believe there is absolutely nothing of note outside of Seoul and an obligatory trip to Gyeongju. This one is written for those considering living in South Korea, perhaps a tough sell because so many people turn to the internet to get their information. However, the book is pretty thorough and is a nice alternative for people who don't want to take forever looking through tons of webpages of varying quality and reliability. The back cover of the book promises:

* Essential information on setting up your daily life, including visas, finances, employment, education, and healthcare
* Practical advice on how to rent or buy a home that fits your needs and budget
* A thorough survey of the best places to live
* Firsthand insight into navigating the language and culture
* How to plan a fact-finding trip before the move
* Special tips for those with children or pets

Ten days ago J.R. Breen of the Korea Times profiled Hopfner and the book; an excerpt:

"The book is intended as a how-to guide for expatriates looking to settle in Korea for the medium to long term," Hopfner said.

Hopfner, an editor at the Thomson Reuters Seoul bureau, said the series is aimed at a brand new market.

"It's part of a series that Moon Handbooks launched a couple of years ago to serve the growing number of people who are leaving their home countries for reasons of work or choice," he said.

"It covers a host of things that would only be of interest to longer-term residents (like) finding housing, banking, taxation, education and employment. I also tried to write the sections on local culture and society bearing in mind someone who lives here is going to interact a lot more with both than a person visiting for a couple of weeks."

The book covers every major city and areas with the highest concentration of expatriates.

"Destinations covered within Korea were chosen because they were the most likely places for expatriates to end up, not based on their interest to tourists," Hopfner said.

All in all it's a pretty interesting book, and plenty useful to the average person moving to Korea by choice or by force. In my opinion it's hard to truly get a sense of the country until after you arrive, but the book gives you resources that'll come in handy after you do.

For those of you keeping score at home or taking notes from your office in Seoul, I wasn't paid for my contributions to this book or for the Gwangju guidebook I helped out with a little back in aught seven. It was just cool to be asked, and to help get information out there about that frequently-slighted corner of the country. And to remind people that my name is also attached to things that don't start with "Angriest Blogger." Makes my parents happier, anyway.

Incheon best airport in the world, again, according to Airports Council International passenger survey.

Incheon International Airport has been named the best airport in the world by the Airports Council International in their Airport Service Quality passenger survey for the fifth straight year.

The passengers ranked the airports on 34 different criteria, including transportation services, cleanliness of facilities, security inspections, waiting times and visa and customs services.

According to the ACI press release, the rest of the top five is Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Hyderabad, all in the Asia-Pacific category. The top five in North America are Austin, Halifax, Ottawa, Jacksonville, and Portland. Cleveland received the "Best Improvement Award" for North America.

I've passed through Incheon International nearly two dozen times and can say it's a great way to enter and exit the country. In the past I've had nice things to say about its "Hub Lounges," its internet access, and its helpful staff.

About the worst part of going back and forth between Asia is having to leave its airports and arrive in North American ones. I like what Thomas Friedman had to say in a New York Times column in 2008, which I posted about last January:

Landing at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was, as I’ve argued before, like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. The ugly, low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped, and using a luggage cart cost $3. (Couldn’t we at least supply foreign visitors with a free luggage cart, like other major airports in the world?) As I looked around at this dingy room, it reminded of somewhere I had been before. Then I remembered: It was the luggage hall in the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport. It closed in 1998.

The next day I went to Penn Station, where the escalators down to the tracks are so narrow that they seem to have been designed before suitcases were invented. The disgusting track-side platforms apparently have not been cleaned since World War II. I took the Acela, America’s sorry excuse for a bullet train, from New York to Washington. Along the way, I tried to use my cellphone to conduct an interview and my conversation was interrupted by three dropped calls within one 15-minute span.

All I could think to myself was: If we’re so smart, why are other people living so much better than us?

Last January I wrote

And let's not forget the biggest deficiency in American airports: the people who work there.

and I think that's generally true, a difference in how people in the customer service industry perceive their roles and responsibilities across cultures. That's looking at people who staff ticket counters and information booths, and not even taking into account the ridiculous Transportation Security Administration and the hassle of measures imposed on us in the "land of the free," by people who don't make the connection between our nation attacking foreign countries and imposing its will on others, and the need for "protection" from "terrorists."

Adding to the discomfort of the flight between Asia and the U.S., and this is a whole other issue related to the travel experience but not to airports, is the low level of service economy class passengers can expect on U.S. carriers. Each time I've crossed the Pacific on North American carriers---United, Continental, American---I've found discourteous staff who are rude to people who don't speak English, insulting to passengers within earshot, and who treat people as a burden rather than as paying customers.

Korean change for Haiti.

Riann Arkinstall, an English teacher in Gangjin county, recently started a Facebook group, "Korean change for Haiti," toward a good cause:

Many of us have spare change jars. I decided that I would take my jars into the bank and donate these coins for a positive change in Haiti.

I would like to invite you and your Korean friends and colleagues to do the same. It takes only a minute and if we pool these small sums, we can make a difference.

Donations are sent to the bank account of the Korean Red Cross. You'll find donation information on the group's "Info" page, which says, via a contact at the Korean Red Cross, your donation can qualify you for a tax deduction.

My fiance and I had been collecting 10- and 50-won coins for the past six months---we try to make use of 100- and 500-won coins---and had prepared for donation . . . 3,410 won (US$2.98). The pennies and nickels didn't add up as quickly as we had hoped, so before we went to the bank on Tuesday we threw in a couple 만원s.

I exchanged a couple messages with Riann via Facebook and he mentioned all the great work some foreign English teachers are doing in their neighborhoods here, and said that my writing about it might counter the nasty stereotypes some continue to hold of us here. I've written about this work before, about the great stuff going on during the holiday season and recently about the donation drive to furnish the apartment of a college student recently of a Gwangju orphanage, but really out of modesty and out of fear of punishment---doing anything outside the scope of your E-2 visa can lead to trouble with immigration---people tend to keep quiet about what they do. Though fighting stereotypes is always a consideration, teachers aren't doing good work in the community because they're trying to make themselves look good, they're doing good work in the community because good work needs done in the community.

This day in history: New Kids On The Block arrives in Korea, chaos ensues.

I'll revisit last year's lengthy post about the anniversary of New Kids On The Block's 1992 trip to Seoul. A stampede at their concert two days after their arrival left a student dead and fifty people injured.

Collecting donations for college student formerly of Sung-Bin Orphanage.

Donations raised by Gwangju's foreign community have provided an apartment for a young woman recently of the Sung-bin Orphanage, and now it's time to help furnish it. Here's the description of the Facebook group "Sung Bin Post-Graduate's Donation Group":

Thanks to the fundraising efforts of the Gwangju community, an apartment has been provided for a recent graduate of the Sung Bin orphanage! This apartment, which is being provided free of charge for one year, is unfurnished, and several items are needed. Can you help?

Should you wish to donate one of these items, I would ask that you first contact Tim Whitman to ensure that it’s not already been arranged by someone else. If the item you wish to donate is used, please see that it is clean and in good working condition. The Underground Grocers have generously agreed to store items for us until we are ready to move them into the space. For heavier items please contact us to arrange collection.

You'll find a list of items here, a list that includes many items in our homes and ones---like dishes, towels, hangers, hair dryers, and bedding---that often end up discarded when expats finish their contracts here. Larger items like a refrigerator, rice cooker, television, and CD player are needed as well.

I asked Michael Simning, of GFN 98.7 FM and the Underground Grocers, for more information, and this is what he had to say via Facebook:

We made it clear that we wanted to help some of the kids out with housing and employment. There were several candidates that we had worked with over the past few years but this one girl stuck out. She has managed to get accepted to university but has no family support and only the clothes on her back. There were no housing options open to her so Sungbin suggested we help her out. She was the perfect candidate as she is bright, motivated and not afraid of hard work.

We hope that this sort of assistance will be able to continue in the future. Through the help and support of the foreign community we have been able to build a sturdy foundation for one girl. If this can continue it will be a positive legacy for those that have come and spent time working and living here.

Second subway line finally coming to Gwangju?

Since before I came to Jeollanam-do, Gwangju's sort of had new subway lines planned. The map on the subway station site has for as long as I can remember always shown three lines. Currently there's a single line running west to east, and while I am really impressed by how clean the cars and the stations are, few people use it because it serves such a limited strip of town. It doesn't connect to the bus terminal, Gwangju Station, Chonnam National University, or my house, among other places.


This map from the Gwangju subway website, which I've seen since about 2006, does not reflect current reality, or the planned changes.

Today the plans for line two were announced, and they don't resemble that map up there. Line two (광주지하철2호선) will run in a circle and will connect to, among other places, City Hall, Chonnam National University, Chosun University, World Cup Stadium, and Gwangju Station. An extension will run from Gwangju Station to the bus terminal and over to City Hall, and another extension will go from Songjeong Park subway station north to Unnam Jigu. Construction should start next year.

땅끝 sort of looks like Korea there.

Haenam county has released this picture, which shows "Land's Edge" (땅끝, the southernmost point on peninsular Korea) from an angle, resembling the Korean peninsula.



Here's what it looks like on a Naver map.



Buses run from the Gwangju terminal to 땅끝 twelve times a day, if you're interested. If you go, hike Dalmasan, visit Mihwangsa temple, and stay at the tourist hotel shaped like one of Yi Sun-shin's turtle ships.

You can help Jeollanam-do get more visitors in the winter.

The Jeollanam-do government is looking for ways to attract more tourists to the province in winter, and is offering money for the best ideas (겨울철 관광활성화 방안 아이디어 공모). Here's what GFN, Gwangju's English-language radio station, had to say about it on the local news page:

South Jeolla Province invites citizens to share ideas on how to attract tourists during the winter months. Citizens can submit their suggestions on the provincial government's website, by mail or fax through the end of May. A total of 10 million won prize money will be awarded to those who come up with the best ideas.

More details are available in Korean, along with submission forms, on the government website's bulletin board; here's the contact information:

* 우 편 : 534-700, 전남 무안군 삼향면 오룡길 1번지 전라남도 관광정책과
* F A X : 061-286-4770, 인터넷(전라남도 홈페이지) : http://www.jeonnam.go.kr
* E-Mail : jhr679345@korea.kr
- 문 의 : 전라남도 관광정책과 (061-286-5223

The top prize is 5,000,000 won.

I have some ideas but they're all about creating more mecca, and will probably submit a few, though the target audience of the campaign is clearly Korean.

Immanuel Methodist Church, Seoul's PPG Place.

Across from Olympic Park in Seoul's Bangi-dong is Immanuel Methodist Church (임마누엘교회), shaped like a large glass castle.



Churches in Korea tend to be large, gaudy, and ostentatious---more often than not they're capped by neon crosses---but this one first caught my eye back in 2006 because it looks almost exactly like PPG Place, perhaps the most distinctive building in Pittsburgh.

PPG Place opened in 1983 and 1984, Wikipedia says, and the new church building ten years later. The church's website, as far as I can tell, doesn't acknowledge the resemblence or the inspiration. Here are a few pictures from my visit on January 24th.






PPG Place consists of six builidngs, the largest being 40 stories. The church has two buildings, a 16-story education center and a four-story church, and doesn't enclose a courtyard like its Pittsburgh counterpart. Behind the church is an alley full of motels and singing rooms.

"More Elite US Grads Teaching English in Korea"? Well, no, probably not.

Catching up on what I missed in January I was reminded of this article from the Dong-A Ilbo on the 21st, talking about how more graduates from elite U.S. universities are applying to teach English in Korea. It gives a few examples of applicants from Harvard, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, and the University of North Carolina who decided to teach in Korea after graduating college. The source for this story is "a consul in charge of processing entry visas at the Korean Embassy in Washington," a person who interviews applicants personally if they're working in Korea for the first time. Interviews that likely go something like this:



That's not me being mean for the sake of being mean, that's approximating everything I've read and heard about these mandatory embassy interviews. About the same duration, too; you'd just need to add about eight hours' travel time each way and hundreds of dollars of expenses to replicate the full experience.

What caught my eye in the article was this paragraph:

In the past, many Americans who applied for Korean teaching visas were graduates of community colleges. The consul said, “Until early 2008, graduates of two-year colleges that were unheard of in Korea accounted for the lion’s share of wannabe English teachers.”

That's strange to hear because at least since 2003---as far back as Dave's ESL Cafe threads go---four-year degrees have been required for the E-2 visa. Either the consul is talking out his or her ass, or is suggesting that up until 2008 the majority of appplicants were graduates from community colleges, even though they knew, and their recruiters probably reminded them, they couldn't get teaching visas.

The article finishes:

Few graduates of elite American schools expressed interest in teaching in Korea back then, given the hardly attractive salary of two million won (1,800 U.S. dollars) per month.

The situation has significantly changed since then. The consul, who conducts interviews for teaching visas Tuesdays, said one in four or five applicants is a graduate of an elite school.

The tough job market for college graduates in the U.S. is apparently a major factor for prompting them to seek work in Korea.

It's true that South Korea has the potential to attract and retain experienced teachers because of a tough job market back home, though remember that Korea's reputation for a shady place to work and teach precedes itself. Furthermore, Korea was actually far more lucrative a few years ago when the exchange rate, at least for Americans, was more favorable. I earned 2.1 million won a month at my first hagwon in 2005-2006, but that was about US$400 more a month than it is now, and nearly US$800 a month more than last year during the won's weakest. Salaries have remained stagnant for most of the decade, and if you look at the "salary and benefits" section of the website for English Program in Korea [EPIK]---a program that places teachers in public schools---you'll see that teachers with degrees in education can expect to earn 2.1 million won per month in Busan or Incheon, or up to 2.3 million won in the "provinces," only a slight improvement from 2004. Money isn't everything, true, and teachers don't get into the business to become rich, but as I wrote in the Korea Herald in June, Korea clearly isn't prepared to pay for quality or experience. Two million won, to give the figure in the article, isn't unreasonable for an inexperienced teacher fresh out of college, but it is insulting for people who possess the quote-unquote qualifications Korea professes to be after, and in a country where its teachers are among the highest-paid in the world, isn't nearly enough to get adults to leave their homes to work as "native speaker assistant teachers" and get dicked around by bad recruiters or by schools that don't know what to do with them.

Let's look at another paragraph:

The consul said, “The educational qualifications of college graduates who apply for visas to teach English in Korea have significantly improved.”

Talking about "educational qualifications" is futile in Korea---administrators can't decide what "qualified" means, schools don't know how to recognize quality in English teachers, schools aren't willing to pay for it, and schools continue to simply hire warm bodies with the right skin color---but if you look at the seven names the article included, none of them has a degree in education, none of them mentioned have any training in teaching English as a foreign language, and none---save for perhaps the English major---have anything that might pass for "educational qualifications" beyond a big-name university. The article mentions people with degrees in: human ecology, political science, economics, humanities, ancient literature, and English, and a person with a minor in international relations. Chasing applicants with degrees from name-brand schools---or at least from the schools Koreans have heard of---does nothing to improve the "qualifications" of native speaker English teachers, and is no different than the "image is everything" approach we already have.

To get a fair picture of this trend, if it really exists, you really have to look at the ethnic backgrounds of new teachers, something not mentioned in the article. Korean-Americans, or Koreans who have attended big-name schools, have always made a killing in test-prep hagwons here and from private lessons, but in some cases have a harder time finding work because schools won't hire them and parents don't want their children listening to English from an Asian face. You'll notice that none of the people mentioned by first name in the article will be heading to public schools. Besides, we know that a lot of public schools won't even hire Asian-Americans, and that hagwon, too, discriminate against anybody not young, female, and white.

The article runs with the idea that more elite US graduates are teaching English in Korea, but provides no statistics for the present or the past, thus giving no way to measure "more" other than the observations of an unnamed source at the Korean consul (who probably shouldn't be sharing that information anyway). Likewise, there is no measure of "elite" given, or why somebody from, say, the University of Pennsylvania would be a better hire than somebody like me out of Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Let's not take the word of "a consul in charge of processing entry visas at the Korean Embassy in Washington" when that word isn't backed up with any figures or analysis.

3.0-magnitude earthquake in Gyeonggi-do Tuesday at 6:08 pm.

Around 6:15 on a bus heading out of Seoul today, a display flashed across the bottom of the TV screen saying that a 3.0 magnitude earthquake was detected north of Seoul today at 6:08 pm. KBS Global has the only coverage thus far in English:

A three-point-zero magnitude earthquake jolted parts of Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday evening.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said the quake occurred at 6:08 p.m. with the epicenter eight kilometers north of Siheung.

It's not uncommon for South Korea to experience small earthquakes, and browsing the Earthquake Information page from the KMA---from whence the map below comes---you can get maps for others over the past few years.

Update: Gwangju's got three Vietnamese restaurants.

Update: I found the second one, the one my Sangmu bureau chief fiancee was originally talking about. It's a Pho Bay (포베이), another franchise, and it opened in November. It's located in Chipyeong-dong---the neighborhood loosely known as Sangmu---in the K-One building across from 한국은행 and catacorner to City Hall (map here, in Korean). Turns out there's also one in the Lotte Department Store near Geumnamno 5-ga subway station. Boy, I really suck at keeping up on these things.



Original post:

Not sure when this opened, since nobody from my Brian in Jeollanam-do Sangmu bureau tells me anything, but it's a new addition since the last time I was in the area. A Hoa Binh (호아빈) restaurant is now in Chipyeong-dong, behind Columbus Cinema near the E-Mart in Gwangju's Sangmu area. You'll find a map here via Naver, and one on the Hoa Binh website. It's accessible via buses 지원45 지원50, and if you're going by subway you can head out exit 3 of Uncheon Station (운천역), make that right, and walk along the park until you come to, and go behind, the movie theater.

You people laugh at my enthusiasm, because Hoa Binh is hardly anything special for you Seoul or Gyeonggi folks, but Jeollanam-do has always been deprived of foreign food. This is the first Vietnamese restaurant in town since the little one near Chonnam National University closed sometime last year, and the first chain in Jeollanam-do since the Hoa Binh in Suncheon closed in April 2007. Over the past year, though, there have been some improvements. In downtown Gwangju there's now Thali, Al-Arab, and the popular First Nepal, and there's a Thai restaurant called "Thai Food" near Songjeongni Station (walk along the renovated street across from the station, and turn down the alley at the store 화이트존).

A Kraze Burger opened last year in Sangmu as well, and it serves a pretty good burger.


The K.O. Burger, from November.

Lee Min-ho's lookin' good for Etude House.

Top ten for '09, a month late.

In case you missed it, I was in the Korea Herald on January 5th with a list of ten stories I felt were among the biggest to my readers. I think I've qualified that enough. Like I said in the third paragraph:

The following is a list of the stories I consider most relevant to, and among, my readers, many of whom happen to be English speakers and English teachers. I don't write "relevant to foreigners" or "among expatriates" because though we might all be called the same word in Korean, we're a diverse group of people.

And I'm aware that there's a ton of people who don't read the papers, don't bother with blogs, and have never heard of Dave's ESL Cafe. Anyway, here's the bottom three:

8. English-language radio comes to town
In February an English-language radio station started broadcasting in Busan, and in April one came to Gwangju. The stations are popular among Koreans looking to practice their English, but because few native English speakers are involved, and because few native English speakers in Korea listen to the radio, questions remain about how relevant they are to the foreign community.

9. Stephannie White sues over death of son
Stephannie White, mother of a 14-year-old boy who died under suspicious circumstances in a Gyeongsan sauna in 2008, sued the Korean government, the South Gyeongsan provincial government, the hospital, and the sauna in January. She lost, and her questions remain unanswered. Our question, whether a non-Korean can find justice in Korea, is unanswered, too.

10. Mandatory culture classes for foreign teachers
A politician announced in November that he'd make it mandatory for foreign English teachers to attend classes on Korean culture and education. Teachers who have experienced such programs, though -- and most in public schools have -- realize how dull and impractical they are. Foreign teachers want real opportunities for training, not lessons on kimchi and the Baekje kingdom, and I, at least, want real thought put into effectively using native speaker English teachers in the classroom.

Though I like what I have at number one, I think 2009 will be remembered for all the nasty stories on English teachers in the local press and for teachers hitting back. The category "We hate native speaker English teachers" has a good collection of the worst from 2008 and 2009. I also like what Roboseyo put as his number one on his list of top K-blog stories, and indeed, watching the Korea Times become what it's become---first with bad journalism, with nasty opinion pieces against native speaker English teachers, then with fake letters to the editor, then with more bad journalism, and finally with tabloid-style articles to attract Korean readers from Naver---has been very disappointing to the comparatively few people who look critically at the news they read.

And to preemptively answer the charges that my list is too negative, I admit that yes, the list is negative. News is usually bad news, and I'll bet the large number of expats who don't read the papers or follow online discussions probably didn't even hear about any stories except #4, encouraging people to believe I simply fabricate news via my negativity. But even though I sometimes envy people who keep themselves detached, I can't see any way around writing a list of ten stories most relevant to expats without acknowledging some of what I've included there.

South Korea has world's fastest internet, US 18th, says "State of the Internet Report."

From the U.S. News & World Report, passing along results from the Akimai's "State of the Internet Report" for the third quarter of 2009:

What do South Koreans, Romanians, and the Swiss all have in common? On average, they enjoy faster Internet connection speeds than Americans, according to the quarterly "State of the Internet Report" issued by Akamai, a technology company in Cambridge, Mass., that sells fast data delivery to businesses and other enterprises that put content online. The company looked through its data for an average connection speed throughout the United States and found it to be 3.9 megabits per second, the 18th highest among all countries—meaning that it is well behind first place South Korea, with 14.6 megabits per second. Not only does South Korea have a high average connection speed, it also has a high number of very fast connections: Seventy-four percent of the country's connections are more than 5 megabits per second, a speed that Akamai calls "high broadband." Only 24 percent of U.S. connections qualify as high broadband.

News of this report came out in January, and Extra! Korea beat me to it by about three weeks. The KBS World article notes that Japan came in second, and Hong Kong, Romania, and Sweden round out the top five.

In August we read that the United States is 15 years behind South Korea's internet speed, and I noted that while both Incheon and Narita airports offer free internet access in certain public stations in the airside terminals, at Chicago's O'Hare they were charging five dollars for the first fifteen minutes, $0.33 for each additional minute.

Korean teachers going to the US for further training.

A few articles found via the twitter account of The Jeonju Hub on Korean elementary school English teachers visiting schools in the United States as part of their training. The first article is from January 26th and is about a group of teachers who visited San Bernardino, California, after completing five months of training in Korea.

The 16 instructors, who teach in the Seoul area, spent Tuesday morning at Cal State San Bernardino where they were welcomed by campus educators. The South Korean teachers are scheduled to follow Tuesday morning's activities by visiting San Bernardino area elementary schools and studying how local teachers teach English to students who are learning the language.

"We hope that after these four weeks, you will come out as better teachers," said Tatiana Karmanova, interim dean of Cal State San Bernardino's College of Extended Learning. "You will have better class management, better language skills, (be) more fluent."

One of the visiting teachers, Jee Yeon, said learning English is compulsory in South Korean schools. Yeon said she and her compatriots were lucky to have an opportunity to visit the United States to hone their language skills.

"We have a duty and they (our students) are waiting," she said.

The government pays for teachers to undergo these lengthy training programs if they wish, which consist of five months at the Korean National University of Education and usually one month abroad.

The next article is from Thursday, about nine middle school English teachers who visited New Jersey:

"They are not only so intelligent and professional of the highest quality, but they communicate with a beautiful grace," [Superintendent] Dr. Arilotta noted. The visitors attended classes for nine days and had four weeks of training from Jan. 6 through Feb. 2. They also joined the teaching faculties for staff development activities on the Jan. 18 when students had off for the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.

The guests have indicated that their expectations have been exceeded by the overwhelming welcome they have received: "The administrators and teachers have been incredible. They go out of their way to make us feel included and at home. And the children are so respectful. These are clearly the best schools. The students work intensely with the teachers all day long. Everybody is blessed to have such superior schools and teachers. We are learning so many methods to bring back to Korea where we will mentor other teachers to improve how we teach English to Korean children."

The teachers underwent a "rigorous selection process," according to the director of the placement agency, who said:

"They needed to have at least seven years teaching experience, over 800 hours of staff development training and to pass a classroom teaching performance in front of a panel of judges."

The article concludes by mentioning these teachers were awarded "Teaching English in English - Masters" degrees by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (I've written about those here and here). There are two TEE certificates---"Ace" and "Master"---with a prerequisite of the latter being at least seven years' teaching experience.

I've been wanting to do a post on teacher training programs for a while, and am still collecting opinions to flesh it out (feel free to email me yours at the address on the side of the site). Elementary school teachers could benefit from overseas experience because the curriculum doesn't focus on grammar or writing---well, it did when I saw really shitty homeroom teachers do it---and have accompanying CD-ROMS that essentially do all the work for you, they can thus be taught entirely in English, even by teachers with a very limited command of the language.

On the other hand, observational and anecdotal evidence, together with what Korean English teachers have told me, indicates that these programs for secondary school teachers are probably not the best investment. In spite of these TEE certificates and the experience abroad---which, remember, supplements a lifetime of exposure to the language, decades of study, and four years of training in university---they are still placed back into schools that teach English entirely for standardized grammar tests which make spoken English a sideshow at best and a hindrance to comprehending the subject at worst. Teachers who have attended month-long intensive English programs at the Jeollanam-do Educational Training Institute (전라남도교육연수원) in Damyang county told me they generally had fun and learned a lot, but can't apply any of these skills because:

1) Their students aren't interested in speaking English.
2) Their students' English levels aren't good enough to understand spoken English.
3) The activities they learned in Damyang can't be applied to large class sizes like those in public schools.
4) Teachers must follow and complete the textbooks and teach toward standardized tests, and don't have time to waste on speaking English.

And keep in mind that since in these programs all teachers "pass," regardless of performance, there is no accountability. Just like there's no accountability when native speaker English teachers [NSETs] aren't given the opportunity to evaluate their Korean co-teachers, meaning nobody except blog readers and Facebook friends know when teachers don't participate in lesson planning, don't participate in class, or don't show up at all.

I've posted those thoughts before, and I took those four items from a post in December about a a National Assemblyman complaining about how expensive NSETs are. Similar points were made a few days earlier, in a post about a Seoul National University of Education professor bitching about NSETs for, among other reasons, how much they cost. When looking at the costs of English education, and criticizing the relative costs of imports, they're going to need to look honestly at what goes on in the English classrooms here and whether their training programs are working toward that.