Budget cuts put GEPIK teachers in limbo.

Native speaker English teachers writing a lot on waygook.org this winter break about how GEPIK budget cuts will affect their contracts next year. Commenter xnay wrote on January 29:

I've been teaching at the same high school in Gyeonggi-do for the past 4.5 years and got the axe the other week. On December 23 a memo was sent out to schools by GPOE informing them of budget cuts for the NET program to a number of schools. I found out after returning from a holiday back home on January 17. I was set to go to immigration that day to renew my visa since my school and I had signed a new contract before my vacation. I will now complete this contract to the end of February and then I'm done as the school's budget was already made so there was no room for me without the external funding provided my GPOE.

The copy of the official Korean paper I have from GPOE states that 487 schools in Gyeonggi Province have lost funding that will affect their ability to retain a foreign teacher. 360 elementary schools, 73 middle schools, and 54 high schools have been affected.

Then from February 13:

I went to work on Wednesday and was told that the GPOE would call my school on Friday (11th) or Monday (14th) because they may now reverse their decision at my school (possibly others as well) and provide funding for a foreign teacher. My head teacher told me to wait and see what will happen rather than accept another job offer from somewhere else. From what I have heard, the funding debate is between foreign teachers and free school lunches for the students. What pops into my head is this: if they can flip-flop on this issue so easily and without considering that it's actually affecting people's lives, then what's to prevent them from doing this again on a whim?

Chelleinkorea wrote on another waygook.org thread on the 14th:

I'm surprised to see that nobody has posted anything about the recent GEPIK budget cuts and the fact several people (15 that I know personally) are now jobless.
I am one of these people. I returned on Monday after a holiday in South Africa to be told very casually that my school will not be able to honor the contract they signed with me in December last year because of GEPIK budget cuts.
I have a week and a day to find another job before my contract runs out.

Plenty more comments from teachers in both situations on the two threads. Commenter isanghan speculates

Apaprently (sic), it is coming down to the issue of NETs vs. lunches. However, parents finding out that their children's schools will have no NET is not going over as well as they had thought it would. So, they are considering reversing their decision on funding.

while patch83 brings up a point we could've made in 2009 when the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education pulled similar last-minute cuts:

What bothers me most about this, however, is that I got out of the hagwon racket after 21 months and one broken contract specifically to avoid having this sort of thing happen to me ever again!

News of these cuts came out last fall; a Dave's ESL Cafe thread about GEPIK scaling back teachers was the first public mention on the internet:

A few weeks ago I recall being at a bar when one of my friends mentioned a GEPIK coordinator gave notice that there were massive budget cuts, and all schools in Goyang with more than one teacher would lose half of their budget.

Didn't hear much about it since then, until yesterday.

Apparently they want to slash the number of NETs in Goyang down to 20 for all elementary schools, as there isn't a budget for English like there was 2/3 years ago.

For all the nay-sayers that will claim this is a bluff, that they will not 'fire' us, that isn't what they are doing. Instead they will phase us out and not renew our contracts. In doing that, they can tell the moms anything they want.

Even prior to these rumors and announcements, things were changing for public school teachers with, and applicants to, government-run programs like GEPIK, EPIK, and SMOE. In the spring of 2010 all three, and their intermediary recruiters, were avoiding hiring older, experienced foreign English teachers because they couldn't or wouldn't pay them the salaries they'd command. This while the other side of the mouth complains about the perceived lack of "qualified," competent native speaker English teachers in Korea.

Bra Day, Valentine's Day, and other fabricated consumer holidays.

What better day than November 11th October 31st February 14th to look at manufactured holidays in Korea? The JoongAng Daily did just that, writing

Korean marketers have long sought to devote a calendar day to the consumption of their product, hoping to mimic the success of corporate-created holidays.

Some have been successful, such as Valentine’s Day and Pepero Day, while others seem bizarre and will come as a surprise to most readers[.]

I didn't know "Bra Day" (브라데이) was November 8th, for example. I have to admit, I like the Korean interpretation of Valentine's Day better, where

it is the woman’s responsibility to buy chocolate for their significant others.

At least we get some fair play (and some chocolate) for a change.

Add to the JoongAng Daily's list---written about here and here---Ace Day on October 31st and Garaetteok Day on November 11th, two consumer holidays created to steal thunder from more familiar ones.


As if there were any doubt Korean "Bra Day" advertisements would heavily display white women. Here's Paris Hilton for FILA.

프라임경제 writes that from March students in Suncheon's elementary, middle, and high schools will receive free lunches, a controversial issue throughout the country the past few months.

2011 Gwangyang "International" Maehwa Festival and other March events in Jeollanam-do.

Spring and fall are two big festival seasons in Jeollanam-do, with a good dozen festivals worth visiting. Pickings are slim in March, and may be even slimmer if festivals are cancelled this month due to foot-and-mouth disease (like they were in December and January), but there are a few big ones coming up.

The annual Gwangyang Apricot Blossom Festival (광양매화축제) will be called the Gwangyang International Apricot Blossom Festival (광양국제매화축제) for the first time in 2011, apparently for no real reason ("광양 매화축제, 이름만 '국제'" ), though domestic festivals are known to do this to sound more, well, international. It will run from March 12th through the 20th.


The Gwangyang Apricot Blossom Festival is usually the first spring festival, and marks the beginning of the season for southerners.

Both of my attempts to visit it were unsuccessful: once because I couldn't find the bus and another time because it was too damn cold. Your best bet is to take a bus to Hadong county in Gyeongsangnam-do and walk through town into Gwangyang. You'll find apricot blossoms along the river and will pass through a small market and festival area before finding the shuttle buses that will take you to the Apricot Blossom Village (매화마을). The official website hasn't been updated since last year. See this post of my half-visit in 2009 for more information.

In Gurye county the annual Sansuyu Festival (산수유꽃축제) runs from March 17th through the 20th. The official site hasn't been updated since last year, though it tells you buses run regularly from the terminal in Gurye-eup.



And, the regionally-famous Jindo Sea Road Festival (진도 신비의 바닷길 축제), known also as the Sea-Parting Festival and the Jindo Moses Miracle, will take place from March 19th through the 21st. A few times a year the tide goes out and allows people to walk the 2.8 kilometers between two small islands in Jindo county. The program on the homepage is still under construction, though you'll want to take care to visit on the day when you can actually walk between the two islands. In addition to wading into the sea there is the sort of food and performances you'll find at every Jeollanam-do festival, as well as Jindo dogs and other entertainment.



Here's a profile on the Sea-Parting Festival from the Korea Tourism Organization, and pictures from Jindo's biggest blogger, Living Life Frame by Frame, here and here. Accommodation will be scarce, so if you're from out of town I recommend you find a motel in one of the nearest transportation hubs: love motels are plentiful outside of the bus terminals in Gwangju and Suncheon, for example.

Groupon coming to Korea.

Last May a reader asked if there were any websites in Korea that offered group coupons. There are, and a short article on 이티뉴스 on February 8th says Groupon, "the global social commerce market leader," is coming to South Korea in March:

Groupon . . . begins its business in Korea by founding a branch here and hiring 150 or so employees. The size is quite large and not eclipsed by the 200 or so staff of Ticket Monster, the Korean company dominating the local market. As such, a noticeable change is expected to follow in the segment that is poised to explode this year.

The branch is going to be run jointly by an executive from the headquarters and a Korean entrepreneur. Hwang Hee-seung and Yoon Shin-geun are strong candidates for the latter.

A blog post from last fall profiles the three largest social commerce sites in South Korea, though last month Ticket Monster, the biggest, bought out its closest competitor. Also from last month a JoongAng Daily article looking at complaints customers have made about local social commerce sites. Ticket Monster (티켓몬스터, and on Facebook) has group deals for Gwangju and the surrounding area, as well as for Seoul and the other large cities, in Korean. No word on whether the Korean Groupon will be easily usable by non-Koreans.

Conan brings Korean teenage girls to the masses.

American talk show host Conan O'Brien talking with some Korean girls at a wax museum.



Their speaking in unison is not only awkwardly amusing but a reminder that choral drills are familiar and effective in the Korean ESL classroom as a way of dealing with the stress of speaking English alone.

Cambodian wife cuts off husband's member in Sunchang.

News out of Sunchang, Jeollabuk-do, where a young Cambodian woman cut off her 52-year-old husband's penis while he was asleep. From the Korea Times:

Sunchang Police said that the 26-year-old woman, whose name was not disclosed, cut the penis of her 52-year-old husband, Yang, who was sleeping after drinking, at 7:50 p.m.

The husband was transferred to a hospital and had his organ sutured, with the wound not deemed life-threatening.

Their family members and neighbors testified that the couple often quarreled since their marriage in October 2007. Some of them also said that the wife suspected Yang of having an affair.

Korean-language article from Yonhap here.

In spite of the efforts South Korea has made to be accommodating to the young foreign women it imports to repopulate its rural areas, news of unhappiness and violence aren't uncommon. It will be interesting to read the reaction to this, taking into account the increased awareness of these unhappy marriages within what's still considered a restrictive patriarchal society. In the US, at least, this sort of sexual violence against men is treated much more glibly and humorously than, say, comparable revenge against an unfaithful wife would be.