National Human Rights Commission rules on adoptee pay at Busan English Village.

From the Korea Times:

An English immersion village has been warned by the state human rights watchdog not to discriminate against Korean-American instructors in terms of payment compared to other native English speakers as long as they speak English fluently as their mother tongue.

A 30-year-old Korean-American filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) last May, claiming Busan Global Village, an English-immersion facility in Busan, paid him less than other native English speakers due to his birthplace, South Korea.

The petitioner was adopted by a family in the U.S. when he was 18 months old. He grew up there as a U.S. citizen, using English as his primary language.

He was hired by the institute last year and coerced to sign a contract that treated him like an English-speaking Korean, whose annual pay was roughly 7-10 million won ($6,100-8,700) less than those of native English speakers who were not ethnically Korean. He worked there between July 2009 and April this year.

The NHRC investigated the case and concluded the petitioner should not be differentiated from native speakers when teaching English.

Here is the release from the 국가인권위원회 in Korean.

This ruling on one English Village is not law, and I suspect some schools will continue to pay gyopo teachers, especially their non-Korean-speaking ones, less than their native speaker English teachers. It's an important, and instructive, ruling for overseas Korean adoptees returning to South Korea to teach, though the NHRCK's recommendation to the English Village and its hiring practices reminds us it's better to be aware of, and take preventative measures against, shady contracts than to try and win anything a year or two later.

The agency recommended the institute pay the difference in wages to the instructor.

Famous mystery donor returns to Jeonju this Christmas.

From Yonhap.

Jeonju's Secret Santa (or angel without a face, 얼굴 없는 천사) made another visit to a Jeonju community center this year. The Hankyoreh has more in English.

The "angel" has donated money to the village at the end of every year for the past 11 years. According to Nosong area officials, a man they estimate to be in his 40s called the community center around noon on Tuesday to tell the staff where he had put his donation for this year.

. . .

The money left outside the beauty shop was stuffed inside a piggy bank and a paper box. The donation, totaling 35,840,900 won ($31,219.80), was a mixture of bills and coins in various denominations. There were 700 50,000-won bills, 1,531 500-won coins, 739 100-won coins and 21 10-won coins.

Over the past 11 years, the anonymous donor has given a total of 197,204,020 won.

From the Chosun Ilbo, with video report.

I was wondering if he'd show up this December because last year there was word that the donor had died, as the Korea Herald wrote:

Unlike in previous years, a note accompanied this year's gift indicating that the original donor had passed away. City officials believe the amount given this year included the money received at the deceased's funeral.

S.M. Entertainment Global Audition in Gwangju: February 27th, 2011.

Via Gwangju Blog's readers comes news of an open audition with media juggernaut S.M. Entertainment in several South Korean cities next February. They're coming to Gwangju on February 27th. Be the next World Star like Rain and BoA! The poster says the "Audition is open without any distinction of age, gender, or nationality," but the information page says that it's open only to Asians.



So even if your dreams of becoming a 31-year-old Caucasian K-pop star who can't sing in Korean or Japanese are now thwarted, it still might be fun to check out the auditions. The location hasn't been posted yet for the auditions in Gwangju or other cities, so check the information page later for details.

Sagong Seong-dae is insightful ("they won't complain about health insurance, sick leave and severance package, or leave in three months[.]")

One of the latest articles on the English-teaching robots from the AFP closes with this gem on the additional benefits of robots over native speaker English teachers, attributed to Sagong Seong-dae of the Korea Institute of Science of Technology:

"Plus, they won't complain about health insurance, sick leave and severance package, or leave in three months for a better-paying job in Japan... all you need is a repair and upgrade every once in a while."

That sounds like something from a parody on the pitfalls of teaching English in Korea, given how uppity foreign teachers *cough* are prone to "complaining" about not receiving the health insurance, sick leave, and severance pay contractually provided to them. He might have added that robot English teachers also don't have AIDS and aren't attracted to Korean women.


Poster created by The Waygook Effect.

Reminiscent of the president of the International Graduate School of English saying to Kang Shin-who of the Korea Times in 2009:

``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.

a quotation that was later revealed to be fabricated by the reporter.

Anyway, we can't go too long without the western media writing some "news of the weird" story out of South Korea, and the English-teaching robots is the latest angle to fill that void. This most-recent batch of articles lend themselves to the same comment I made a month ago in a longer look at this misguided program:

If "English Fever" is as exceptionally high in South Korea as we observe and foreign correspondents note, and if communicative competence is as high a priority as the national curriculum has dictated for nearly a decade, it would behoove policy-makers to finally stop rash spending on gimmicks---like robots, expensive English-Only Zones, or inexperienced white people by the thousands---and start developing real solutions that produce results in the classroom, or at least ones that are suitable stand-ins until a generation of domestic English teachers can catch up to the roles in a communication-based English classroom for which they are currently unprepared.

In that AFP article readers with some knowledge of English education in South Korea will find plenty of objectionable lines and ideas. An official at the Daegu office of education said some robots "may be sent to remote rural areas of South Korea shunned by foreign English teachers," though over the past few years we've seen that it's not native speaker English teachers [NSETs] "shunning" rural areas, but rather rural areas unable or unwilling to hire and pay them. Many areas, including where I used to work, have long since stopped hiring NSETs for the public schools and have instead collected a few for regional "English Towns" where students collect for English immersion experiences once or twice a year.

Three paragraphs later the official is indirectly quoted saying she "stressed the experiment was not about replacing human teachers with robots," though the article---which relies a lot on "he said" and "she said," literally---closes with:

Sagong stressed that the robots, which currently cost 10 million won each, largely back up human teachers but would eventually have a bigger role.

The machines can be an efficient tool to hone language skills for many people who feel nervous about conversing with flesh-and-blood foreigners, he said.

"Plus, they won't complain about health insurance, sick leave and severance package, or leave in three months for a better-paying job in Japan... all you need is a repair and upgrade every once in a while."

Hell, Time magazine started its own lazy profile off just last month with "Call it the job terminator."

It is unfortunate that education officials would rather put remote-controlled tape recorders in the classroom rather than living, breathing native English speakers. The article a few times mentions the benefits of robots for shy English students, but that leads us to a point made by commenter Walter Foreman in November:

English in Korea is already too disassociated from the people that speak it (ie. it is treated as something of a novelty rather than as a tool of expression); having children talk to cute wheeble-wobble-looking robots will only help to reinforce that disassociation!

From here.

And it's ironic that these latest models will be controlled and operated by English teachers in the Philippines

The robots, which display an avatar face of a Caucasian woman, are controlled remotely by teachers of English in the Philippines -- who can see and hear the children via a remote control system.

Cameras detect the Filipino teachers' facial expressions and instantly reflect them on the avatar's face, said Sagong Seong-Dae, a senior scientist at KIST.

"Well-educated, experienced Filipino teachers are far cheaper than their counterparts elsewhere, including South Korea," he told AFP.

who would otherwise have a difficult time ousting a pretty white face from an English classroom, regardless of their experience and education.

Foot-and-mouth disease means many sunrise and sunset festival cancellations in Jeollanam-do.

Shortly after a February 2008 sunrise at Busan's Haeundae beach.

The last sunset of the year and the first of the next are events celebrated in counties and cities throughout the country. I had planned a brief overview of festivals happening in Jeollanam-do, but unfortunately the most notable ones have been cancelled over concerns of foot-and-mouth disease. These include the sunrise and sunset festivals at Haenam county's "Land's Edge" (which posted the following message on the 24th on the official webpage)

해남 땅끝마을에서 개최예정이었던
제15회 땅끝해넘이해맞이축제 및 울돌목거북배 선상해맞이 행사를
최근 구제역이 전국적으로 확산됨에 따라 부득이 취소키로 결정하였음을 알려드리오니,
이점 양지하시기 바랍니다

그동안 행사의 성공적 개최를 위해 각계각층에서 보내주신 성원에 감사드리며
내년에는 더욱 알차고 차별화된 축제로 발전시킬 것을 약속드립니다.

and the sunrise festivals at Goheung's Namyeol Beach, at Yeongam Lake, Wando, and Yeosu's Hyangiram.

Student in Ulsan dies after long gaming session.

From Sportsseoul.com. This question mark clipart looks to have become obligatory in Korean articles this year.

In what is sure to spawn even more "news of the weird" articles out of South Korea, the Korea Times writes about a college student in Ulsan who died after nearly twelve hours of online gaming.

On Monday afternoon in a PC bang in the southeastern city of Ulsan, the collegian, only identified as Moon, suddenly fell to the ground and was rushed to a hospital but he was declared dead upon arrival, police said.

The 19-year-old collegian went to the PC bang at around 2 a.m., stopped by his home briefly at 10:30 a.m., to eat, and returned to the PC bang.

His families and friends told the police that he habitually played the online shooting game.

In March, after the death of a baby at two internet-addicted parents made headlines, I shared a couple other recent examples of internet use taken to extremes, as that story and others drew attention to the problem of internet addiction in South Korea. Probably the best-known example, historically, is out of Gwangju, where a young man died after 86 hours at a PC방 in 2002.

Gwangju city's blog wins award at 2010 Korea Blog Awards.

To quote from GFN 98.7 FM, since I can't link directly to their news articles:

Gwangju Metropolitan City’s blog sayGJ.com has won first place in the public organizations sector of the 2010 Korea Blog Award.

The Korea Blog Business Association and the Korea Press Foundation jointly administered the award.

The evaluations considered a blog’s content, activities and communications.

The City’s blog began September 2009 and was recognized for its offerings in the areas of art and culture, tourism, food, and city news.

To this date, the blog has had over 1.8 million hits.

This Korean-language write-up lists other winners. The city has sponsored an English-language blog this year as well, Gwangju Blog.

Wando winter swim (건강의 섬 완도 겨울바다 수영 대회): January 7, 2011.

Wando's Myeongsashimni Beach---arguably the best in the province---will host a winter swim on January 7th. Probably best written as a Polar Bear Swim in English, it's known in Korean as "건강의 섬 완도 겨울바다 수영 대회" to incorporate the county's slogan. Registration is open to the first 500 people through January 5th. The registration form is online here, as an .hwp file; contact 061-550-5481 for more information.

Buses head to the beach from the terminal in Wando, in turn accessible from the Gwangju U-Square terminal.

The debate on HIV tests for foreign English teachers in TIME magazine.

Notable American magazine TIME has picked up on the story a few months ago on the decision to continue HIV tests for E-2 visa-holding English teachers while dropping the requirements on those with "entertainment" visas. You'll remember from October in the Korea Times:

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said it will scrap compulsory human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) tests for foreigners seeking to acquire an entertainer’s E-6 visa, and workers renewing their E-9 visas here.

However, the tests will still be required of those seeking E-2 language teaching visas.

. . .

[T]he latest move is likely to spark more disputes over the continued testing requirement for E-2 visa applicants and holders.

“Education is considered a very intimate relationship. According to an unofficial survey by the Prime Minister’s Office, the majority of parents wanted solid evidence of their children’s teachers’ HIV status,” said an official of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

From TIME magazine's "Should Foreign Teachers Be Tested for HIV?" on the 24th:

[E]very few years, a fresh wave of anti-foreign teacher sentiment shines a light on the nation's lingering xenophobia.

This year, tensions over mandatory HIV/AIDS tests for foreign teachers have re-surfaced, sparking a heated national debate. In 2007, a series of sensational press reports fueled rumors that foreign English teachers were molesting students and spreading HIV/AIDS. Though the reports were never substantiated, the government began to require that all foreign teachers get tested for HIV, including those who were already in the country. Those who tested positive could have their contracts canceled and faced deportation.

Three years later, the law persists, though ethnic Koreans are exempted, regardless of where they are born or raised. Says Andrea Vandom, a former teacher who is petitioning a constitutional court over the tests: "I was being pinpointed as a disease carrier simply because I am not of Korean blood."

The excellent research and advocacy of professor Benjamin Wagner---named in the article---and blogger Gusts of Popular Feeling have long informed the dialogue on this issue and the one against hate-mongers like Lee Eun-ung. Read Wagner's "Discrimination Against Non-citizens in the Republic of Korea in the Context of the E-2 Foreign Language Teaching Visa" for an overview of the ignorance that informs the testing requirements, and Gusts of Popular Feeling's "The battle over HIV tests for foreign English teachers" for a look in November at the recent reaffirmation of tests for E-2 holders.

110 PC방, one 여관 for every 1,696 people, and other numbers from Suncheon.

The Suncheon News has statistics on population and local business:

이 자료에 따르면 순천에는 노래방이 모두 190곳으로 순천시민 1419명 당 1곳인 것으로 나타났으며, 호프집은 676곳으로 399명 당 1곳이었다. 다음은 나머지 업종의 업소 수와 1업소당 인구수. 과일가게 56곳(4813명), 인터넷PC방 110곳(2451명), 가구점 65곳(4147명), 꽃가게 128곳(2106명), 목욕탕 31곳(8695명), 문구점 112곳(2407명), 미용실 330곳(817명), 부동산중개업 148곳(1822명), 서점 74곳(3643명), 세탁업 123곳(2192명), 수퍼마켓 138곳(1954명), 식육점 103곳(2617명), 식품소매 516곳(523명), 인테리어 81곳(3328명), 안경점 36곳(7487명), 여관 159곳(1696명), 예체능학원 335곳(805명), 의류점 640곳(422명), 음식점 2206곳(123명), 이발소 124곳(2174명), 입시보습학원 301곳(896명), 자동차수리 277곳(973명), 통신기기 판매 31곳(8695명), 제과점 62곳(4348명), 철물점 49곳(5501명), 체인화 음식점 139곳(1939명), 편의점 87곳(3098명), 화장품 154곳(1751명)이다.

White Christmas in Mokpo, Jeonnam.

Playing outside in Mokpo, where the seven centimeters of snow gave it the first white Christmas in ten years.

You need a drug test (and By the way Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year !!!)

From Waygook.org and this Dave's thread comes news of an email sent to public school English teachers from the Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education:

Dear Precious GETs,

Greetings,

This is (NAME), the English Coordinator at Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education. Recently, I got a phone call from the Police Officer (Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office) in Daejeon City and warned me that several groups of native people that gathered to smoke marijuana, especially among elementary GETs in Daejeon city. The police will request a list of schools in Daejeon so can start an investigation through a urine test among GETs. As you know, in Korea, as well as generic drugs, smoking marijuana is also illegal. If a person is arrested due to smoking marijuana, he/she will have a full legal responsibility and be deported from South Korea. Thank you for your attention.

By the way,

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year !!!

Wonder if that's a result of the Quincy Black sex videos recently out of Daejeon, which prompted inquiries into the "qualifications" and ethics of native speaker English teachers.

Christmas 2010 in Busan.

I meant to write about the Kosin University Christmas Tree Festival again this year but found no mention of it until this morning when I learned Busan's festivities will be held---and have been held since November---under a different name. Last year it was the "Busan Tree Culture Festival," this year the English slogan is "Happy Busan, Christmas Busan" (the Korean expands on 2009: "크리스마스트리문화축제").


From opening night, November 30th.

Last year the festival was comprised of four smaller festivals held along the Gwangbok-dong "Christmas Tree Festival belt"; this year it's the same place but streamlined into one entity. You'll find the events---outlined briefly on the festival calendar---in Nampo-dong north of Nampo Station on Line 1 of the Busan subway system.


From the official festival site.

Since the festival runs until mid-January you'll have plenty of time to experience Christmas in Busan. Since Nampo-dong is bustling and lit-up 365 days a year, though, those with limited time and a hankering for something Christmasy may want to try something more seasonal: the large Winter Lighting Festival in Gapyeong or the Christmas Village in rural Naju.

“Vietnam Scenery and Spirit – Close up the Past, Looking to the Future” exhibition in Gwangju through February 6th.

VOV News writes about a Vietnamese art exhibition in Gwangju from December 16th through February 6th, 2011, at Gwangju's Fine Arts Museum.

The exhibition themed “Vietnam Scenery and Spirit – Close up the Past, Looking to the Future” introduces nearly 50 works of outstanding contemporary artists selected from collections of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum and the Vietnam Fine Arts Association.

The painters include masters graduating from the Indochina Fine Arts College, which was established in 1924 and is the precursor of the Vietnam University of Fine Arts, and well-known painters of next generations.

The paintings, which use a wide range of materials from oil paint, lacquer to silk, are arranged based on historical periods of Vietnam from the 40s of the previous century to the first years of the 21st century. They introduce Vietnamese landscapes, people and their production life, traditional customs, as well as the country’s resistance wars lasting for 30 years.

"베트남의 풍경과 정신" and the museum are in my old neighborhood of Unam-dong, and accessible by eleven different buses that stop in the vicinity. It's open from 9:00 to 6:00, and admission is 500 won for adults.

A way to search Dave's ESL Cafe.

The dysfunctional search engine on Dave's ESL Cafe's Korea forums is---content aside---the biggest complaint among users, with it difficult if not impossible to find information and older threads. Dmitry Volokhov emailed recently to share his new SearchESLCafe.com site which makes the process a lot easier. You may remember a couple of years ago he created another version which simplified the process as well, though he writes that the new one

is a prettier, more customizable and easier to remember package for it.

The main page also displays recent searches, and as the FAQ page states, SearchESLCafe.com searches for the Korean forums also include posts on Brian in Jeollanam-do and several other big Korea-focused blogs and sites. Maybe we finally have a solution to the weekly "What's Gwangju Like?" threads.

Eseul Village Happy Christmas Festival, December 22nd - 26th.

For those collecting information about obscure regional festivals, the 4th annual Eseul Village Happy Christmas Festival (제4회 이슬촌의 해피크리스마스축제) will run from December 22nd through the 26th in a Naju township. A Catholic Asian News article from 2008 talks a little about the "Christmas Village" and its Christmastime festivities:

Leafless trees, buildings and even farming vehicles glitter in every color as bands play, people sing carols and "Santa Clauses" entertain visitors. Christmas thus came alive from Dec. 19 to 23 in Eseulchon (village of dew), a Catholic farming village in Noan, Naju, about 280 kilometers south of Seoul.

Far more than Eseulchon's 170 residents have made it a "Christmas village." One village official told UCA News about 1,500 visitors came to the first such festival in 2007, and this year's festival has drawn twice as many.

Park Eun-jeong, 23, who came visiting from nearby Gwangju with her boyfriend, told UCA News: "It's really beautiful! I feel Christmas has already come. It's good for a village to celebrate Christmas with such a festival."

As the festival began, village head Anthony Kim Jong-gwan told UCA News that almost all 68 village families are Catholic. He said local people "naturally" became Catholics when a French missioner built Noan Church here 100 years ago. This designated cultural asset marked its centenary last November.

Taken from here, but I can't find the rest of the article online anymore. That entry has a few photos; here are a few more:



From CNBNews.com and Newsis.

More available on the "Christmas Village" site. Transportation information to and from Noan-myeon from local cities is scarce: you can try their number, 061-336-5159, for more.

Gwangju gets new pro soccer team for 2011.

At the team's Grand Open opening ceremony, from the K-League website.

Yonhap tells us that Gwangju will have a new professional soccer team for 2011.

Gwangju FC, the 16th club in South Korea's K-League football, got off the ground with a launching ceremony here in the southern part of the country on Thursday.

At a ceremony attended by Gwangju Mayor Kang Wun-tae and Korea Football Association (KFA) Chairman Cho Chung-yun plus some 2,000 residents, the team's emblem was unveiled for the first time, as players vowed to play hard for their fans.

Gwangju FC will be run on civic funds. About 20,000 people, including Celtic FC midfielder Ki Sung-yueng and LPGA Tour golfer Shin Ji-yai, raised 1.5 billion won (US$1.3 million) to cover the team's operating costs.

광주시민프로축구단 will round out the K-League to 16 teams, and will play at Gwangju's World Cup Stadium starting in March. Gwangju Sangmu FC will move to Sangju, leaving Gwangju FC and Gwangyang's Chunnam Dragons as the two Jeollanam-do teams. Check the Gwangju FC official site later for schedules and ticket information.

Book, bake sale to benefit Sungbin Home For Girls, December 18th.

Of interest to readers in Jeollanam-do is news of the annual Sungbin Orphanage Bake Sale, held this year on December 18th at the German Bar in Gwangju. For more information and updates see The Waygook Effect, the Sungbin Bake Sale Facebook group, and Gwangju Blog the latter also having a couple recipes.

More news about Korean teachers training in the US.

Via Jason Ryan of Kimchi Icecream comes an article from NorthJersey.com about Korean English teachers from Busan augmenting their training with stays in New Jersey classrooms.

Just days after arriving from South Korea, Fort Lee School Superintendent Raymond Bandlow on Dec. 10 welcomed Hea-Kyung Lim, the chief superintendent of the Busan Metropolitan City school district, which oversees 600 schools within the second largest city in South Korea.

During a tour of several first grade classrooms at School 1, Lim and members of her administrative staff had the opportunity to observe some of her teachers interacting with students and collaborating with Fort Lee teachers.

They also took a tour through the pre-school learning disabled classrooms at the Good Sheppard Church, which are part of the school district.

Through the TICKET program (Total Immersion Course for Chinese and Korean English Teachers), now in its third year, seven teachers stay in Fort Lee from October through April 2011 to pick up techniques and skills they can apply in their own classrooms back home.

Readers may remember Superintendent Lim from October when it was announced Busan will begin evaluating native speaker English teachers.

The article goes on to say the six-month program costs $16,000 per teacher. It is aimed at further preparing Korean English teachers to conduct their classes entirely in English, and presumably to watch and learn classroom techniques conducive to that.

For a couple other posts on similar trips, with plenty of reader comments see:

* February 5, 2010: Korean teachers going to the US for further training.

* March 8, 2010: More Korean teachers going to the US for further training.

Nanta in Gwangju this Christmas.

The comedic drum show Nanta (난타) will be in Gwangju on December 24th and 25th. There will be two performances each day---6:00 and 9:30 on Friday, 2:00 and 6:00 on Saturday---at the Culture and Arts Center (문화예술회관) in Unam-dong. Tickets range from 45,000 to 55,000 won.

The Korea Tourism Organization introduces the show:

'NANTA' figuratively refers to reckless punching as in a boxing match. 'NANTA' is a non-verbal performance of free rhythmical movements that dramatize customary Korean percussions in a strikingly comedic stage show. Integrating unique Korean traditional drumbeats in a western performance style, NANTA storms into a huge kitchen where four capricious cooks are preparing a wedding banquet. While cooking, they turn all kinds of kitchen items - pots, pans, dishes, knives, chopping boards, water bottles, brooms and even each other- into percussion instruments.

My then-fiancee and I went to the performance last Christmas in Suncheon and had an excellent time.

"Korea. Korea? KOREA??!!" wins award for F1 race of the year.

That's how one journalist responded to news of South Korea winning a Promoters' Award for its F1 in Yeongam county: the event at a facility that didn't pass inspection, that gave away thousands of free tickets it didn't have, that didn't have adequate accommodation, and that keeps itself in the newspapers through its organizers' alleged corruption. From F1Planet.com, via a reader message:

The Korean Grand Prix received the Race Promoters' trophy at the FIA's annual awards gala in Monaco on Friday night.

For long periods it appeared that the inaugural Korean GP may not go ahead, with concerns as to whether or not the circuit would be ready in time. However, with the race a success, the efforts of the organisers have now been recognised.

"It is a great honour to receive this award on behalf of all of those involved in the first Korean Grand Prix," said Yung Cho Chung of the Korea Automobile Racing Association.

Motorsport.com has covered two correspondents' reactions:

"Korea. Korea? KOREA??!! I must have been somewhere else," remarked The Times correspondent Kevin Eason on Twitter.

Added Byron Young, F1 correspondent for the Daily Mirror: "The Korean GP, complete with event and flight chaos, shoddy hotels and things I won't mention, won the race promotor's trophy. Why?"

Eason also wrote:

Apologies late on the case but been treated by medics for confusion. Apparently Korea won FIA race promoter of the year. Where's my pills?

Sisters of Charity mark 50 years of work in Korea, Jeollanam-do.

From the official 사랑의씨튼수녀회 site.

"News" from last month with a Gangjin and Pittsburgh connection, as several Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill (사랑의씨튼수녀회) returned to South Korea to celebrate the group's 50th anniversary of work there. The Sisters came to Jeollanam-do in 1960 from western Pennsylvania to found a girls' school, and with their domestic colleagues still operate community centers in Gwangju and St. Joseph's Girls' High School in Gangjin county. The official site has an overview of their work in Korea, and East Asia:

Today, 205 Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill serve in the Korean Province and in 11 dioceses there. Several American sisters are members of the Korean Province, but the majority of its members are native Korean women. Each year, at least one American Sister of Charity volunteers to serve in Korea teaching English as a second language to both sisters and students.

Our ministries in the Korean Province are varied and include a school for children who are blind, another school for children with physical disabilities, and a bakery that teaches vocational skills to young adults with physical disabilities.

The Pittsburgh Press has an article from June 25th, 1960 about the first mission.

When the freighter "California Bear" pulls out of San Francisco Sept. 22 and heads for the Far East, probably the most unusual cargo she ever carried will be stowed away in the hold.
It will be the makings of a foreign mission to the southwestern tip of Korea. In the ship's cabins will be four nuns who have been chosen to start the first foreign mission of the Sisters of Charity at Seton Hill Greensburg.

. . .

Out of the community of more than 800 religious, these four were selected from the many who volunteered when Bishop Harold W. Henry invited the sisters to open a school in the Vicariate of Kwangju, Korea.

The Press has another article four years later when one woman's mother visited the mission in Jeollanam-do. Several articles and mentions appeared in Pittsburgh papers after that---in 1970, 1972, and 1983---interestingly repeating a typographical error in 1964: "Kang Tjin."


Sisters in Gangjin, from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea messageboard.


An early English class.

I was lucky enough to meet one of these women in 2006 through a mutual friend, one of several expatriates in South Korea with a western Pennsylvania connection. And, in an interesting coincidence, I learned last Easter that my mother's aunt's cousin, one of the women who attended the commemoration, lived and taught in Gangjin a couple of years before I arrived.

To study or not to study, abroad, in North Korea.

A reader passes along an article in Duke University's The Chronicle about The P'yongyang Project, a program recruiting for a study abroad experience in North Korea.

Despite North Korea’s strict policies for foreign travelers, some American students now have the opportunity to study in the isolated country.

Senior Jack Zhang visited the country this past June with The P’yongyang Project, a program founded in 2009 to increase academic and cultural interaction between Americans and North Koreans.

The P’yongyang Project, the only educational program that allows Americans to study in North Korea, offers a unique opportunity for students and professors to explore Northeast Asia. The project, which offers summer study abroad programs and shorter delegation trips, hopes to inspire a grassroots movement working toward peace between the nation and other parts of the world through cultural exchange.

. . .

“When [students] think of North Korea, they think ‘bad government,’ but there is a human element as well,” said [a freshman who attended an information session. “I think it is definitely something I want to consider.”

And he directs my attention to the lengthy comment section, where he is involved in a debate with the project director of The P'yongyang Project over the merits, ethics, and authenticity of such a program. An excerpt of the first comment:

I really have no interest in visiting North Korea as it is now. The Chron article is full of bromides, like "there is a human element as well". Of course there is. It's just that foreign visitors are prevented from interacting with it in any meaningful way. The usual routine for foreigners who visit is well documented over and over again in travelogs on the web, and while some insight from direct contact is inevitable, basically its a scripted experience, guided to one personality-cult worship site after another, interspersed with false-history presentations, Potemkin villages and the like -- all the while stripping visiting foreigners of a lot of assets that go to fund activities directed to preserve the Kim-family dynasty and oppress the people.

You'll find fuller comments at the article, and participant testimonials on the official site.

I haven't yet made up my mind where I would side in that debate, though I think there are definite merits to it, provided it's an authentic experience, its participants are prepared to be open and unbiased, and are culled from a diverse background. Remaining hidden behind its borders and layers of mystery do not foster understanding among the country's residents and its foreign observers.

Only tangentially related, but a book I found interesting and illuminating on living in North Korea is titled---too alarmingly---Living With The Enemy: Inside North Korea, by western Pennsylvanian Richard Saccone about his year in-country in 2001.

Gwangju's Kia Tigers to get new home in 2014.

The Korea Times writes on something that came up during the last gubernatorial election: a new home for their Kia baseball Tigers.

Kia announced Tuesday that it has decided to invest 30 billion won in Gwangju city’s plan to construct the stadium.

The new arena is expected to open for the Korea professional baseball league beginning in 2014.

The team based in South Jeolla Province will invest 10 billion won each year from 2011 to contribute to the total investment of 100 billion won.

Gwangju City has already secured 10 billion won while the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has also earmarked a budget of 30 billion won.

The stadium will be part of a sports complex, which will be built just next to the Tigers’ present home.

The stadium plans to accommodate 25,000 spectators and the current arena will be used for the Gwangju Univerisiade in 2015 and for local citizens.

Winter Lighting Festival (오색별빛정원전) at Gapyeong's Garden of Morning Calm: December 3, 2010 - February 28, 2011.

The 4th annual Lighting Festival (오색별빛정원전) at the Garden of Morning Calm (아침고요구목원) will run from December 3rd through February 28th, 2010. Little English-language information is available, though the Korean-language website tells us the lights will be on display from 5:30 to 8:30 and that the festival is accessible by buses to Changpyeong and then by local buses to the garden. A Korea.net write-up a few years ago---no longer available online---says there are over a million lights spread throughout the site's five themed gardens.



From two years ago (1, 2)

Commenters have left their thoughts about past years' festivals on previous posts. Jim writes:

I went there yesterday, pretty amazing but was the coldest day of the year so bad timing on my part. My 3 year old absolutely loved it and I was impressed with the work that must have gone into it.

From ROK Drop:

The valley the garden sits in is actually quite scenic but it is a nightmare trying to get there because of the traffic that gets backed up on the winding road into the valley. Then once there the place is overfilled with people and really not enjoyable.

I have only been there a couple of times on the weekend. I am willing to bet if you go on a weekday it will probably be more enjoyable due to smaller crowds.

And Mr Rocky Top:

I went there last year the day after Christmas. The traffic wasn't bad, and there weren't that many people there. I would definitely recommend it as something Christmasy to experience.

To close, here is a video taken at the garden last year:

Boseong Tea Plantation Light Festival (보성차밭 빛의 축제), December 17, 2010 - February 6, 2011.

The annual Boseong Tea Plantation Light Festival (보성차밭 빛의 축제) will take place from December 17th, 2010 through February 6th, 2011---roughly from Christmas through the Lunar New Year---at Boseong county's best-known attraction.

At the bus terminal in Boseong county, accessible via numerous buses from Gwangju and Suncheon, there are signs in English and Korean instructing you how to purchase tickets to the plantation. I went to the Light Festival last year on what was about the damn coldest day of the winter. The lights aren't strung in the main plantation viewing station---where people take pictures like the one in my header---but rather to the left and up the hill from where the bus will drop you off.


From December 2005.

Gwangju International Film Festival (광주국제영화제), December 9th - 12th.

The 10th Gwangju International Film Festival (광주영화제) will run from December 9th to 12th at the Megabox downtown (map). Under the program tab on the official site you'll find lists of the dozen or so films playing, though information is limited in Korean: times, locations, and subtitle choices are not yet posted under the 상영안내 tab.

The English tab looks to be just for decoration.

Gwangju to get country's first coffee and cocoa museum.

So says GFN's local news page:

Under an exchange agreement signed last month with the Deok-won Group in Malaysia, Chunnam Techno College is opening a coffee and cocoa museum in Nambu University, Gwangju. Chunnam Techno College trains baristas in its Hotel, Tourism and Cocktail Department.

. . .

Opening later next year, the museum will show how plantations grow coffee and cocoa trees and how they produce and process various beans.

It will also provide various public programs, including coffee tastings at its in-house café.

It will be the country's first museum devoted to mixing espresso and hot water coffee and cocoa museum. Korean-language article here from Yonhap.

Extreme Championship Government this December.

Reuters, via The Huffington Post, has brief footage from Seoul City Council's "December to Remember," in which rival stables clashed over a free school lunches bill.

Meanwhile the industry's biggest stars were promoting their upcoming Pay-Per-View "Some Assembly Required" at a house event on the 2nd.



Song Gwang-ho gets caught in a bad spot during a lumberjack match (top), and oversells a wrist-grab (bottom).

Gyeonggi-do to reduce number of native speaker English teachers next year.

Quantifying some of the talk we read last week about Korean public schools phasing-out native speaker English teachers, the Korea Times writes on Gyeonggi-do's plans:

Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education said Thursday it plans to cut the number of foreign English teacher by 200 or 8.8 percent to 2,056 for next year. Currently, a total of 2,256 native English speakers are working at 2,032 schools in the province.

The provincial education office said it is also considering cutting the number of native teachers in phases in the years to come.

Instead, the education office will increase the number of Korean English conversation teachers, who speak only in English during class, up to 1,100 from current 600.

“We plan to gradually reduce foreign teachers and replace them with Korean English conversation teachers,” said an official from the provincial office.

She said the policy change reflects higher costs to hire native speakers, including accommodations and airplane tickets for the foreigners.

. . .

Some education offices including Gangwon Province are joining in the move with Gyeonggi, while others in Daegue (sic), North Gyeongsang and Ulsan plan to hire more native English speakers.

In case of Seoul, the education authorities are trying to maintain the current number of foreign English teachers, approximately 1,000.

On Tuesday Gusts of Popular Feeling shared some recent Korean-language articles on the topic as well, with information mirrored in Thursday's English-language piece. A short excerpt, starting with talk about those Korean English "lecturers" said to be replacing us, that brings up a good point:

A November 25 Donga Ilbo article elaborates further on the latter instructors, saying that Gyeonggi-do began selecting Korean English conversation specialist instructors in June 2009, and there are currently around 650 working in schools, with plans to raise the number to 1000 next year.

It also notes that as the plan to reduce native teachers has become known to students' parents, there has been resistance due to fears of private education costs rising. According to parent Jeong Suk-hee, (39, Bundang): "Among parents there has been talk that Korean English conversation specialist instructors lag behind native speaking instructors," and, "If there isn’t much difference in the supporting budgets, we want native speaking teachers to be placed [in schools]."

The Times ran one generic photo of students talking with a native speaker English teacher, though if we're just going to decorate, I always enjoyed this one of a teacher organizing a prize fight in Yeosu.