Gwangju man dies homeless with 128 million in the bank.

An excerpt from the Korea Times:

A homeless man, who was denied access to more than 100 million won he had saved in a bank account since 1993, died of cancer last week.

The man couldn't withdraw the 128 million won ($94,000) in his account because he didn't know his own name.

According to Gwangju police and Gwangju Bank, the man, who didn't have a registered name or ID number, died of pancreatic cancer in a hospital on April 28.

Called Mr. Na by those who knew him, he collected scrap iron and other junk in the daytime and slept on the street at night. Friends said Na had told them he was born on May 23, 1953, but didn't know his real name.

According to the bank, he opened an account under an alias in early 1993. The bank said he continued saving money until recently although his account has been frozen since August 1993, when the real-name account system, introduced by former President Kim Young-sam, took effect.

It'll be up to a court to decide what happens to the money, the article says, but a bank official said the money will probably go to the government.

Japanese porn stars coming to a Korean soap opera.

Man, that title will bring me a ton of hits. All K-Pop, via Extra! Korea, says that three Japanese AV stars will appear in a Korean drama called Korean Classroom. Says All K-Pop of Sora Aoi, one of the stars,

this is strictly a fully-clothed drama as she continues to work hard to distance herself from the AV field. The production for Korean Classroom was completed last July (2008) and will be on local cable channels in May.

They will play attractive exchange students who fall for Korean men. Of course. LOL at the first line of Aoi's Wikipedia page.

Gunsan man busted for stealing dog, selling it to bosintang restaurant.

From the Times:

Gunsan Police Station in North Jeolla Province booked the suspect, identified only as Choi, 42, on Monday for stealing the three-year-old Siberian Husky. He sold the dog ― worth about 3 million won ($2,400) ― on the black market for just 140,000 won.

According to the police, Choi took the animal from a nearby parking lot after losing 30,000 won at an adult video game arcade on April 28. The dog was owned by a nearby public bath operator.

Choi was apparently unaware of the true value of the animal when he sold it the next day for a fraction of its worth, police said.

"The dog Choi stole is of fine breed with a genealogical table," an officer said. "The dog is well-tamed and thus did not resist when Choi took him in his car."

In Korean here. What a horrible fate for that dog. To say nothing of the previous owner chaining a dog of such a fine pedigree outside in the parking lot in the first place.

Suh In-young done got her nose did again.

Extra! Korea tells us that Suh In-young of the girl group Jewelry, pound-for-pound the ugliest pop group in Korea, has gotten another new nose. Often women will have plastic surgery to help them look younger, but this 24-year-old has consistently gone the other direction. Maybe this latest change is the incidental result of someone, um, "thanking" her for popularizing that ugly-as-fuck mushroom haircut last year.

Busy day in Damyang.

Lots of tourists in Damyang for the Bamboo Festival.



Damyang estimates that 350,000 tourists have shown up so far. The county has a population of 51,022 as of the 2007 census.

In the Joongang Ilbo today.

My latest piece in the Joongang Ilbo is online, this time about swine flu and the preventative measures taken to keep it under control in South Korea.

If you're wondering what the premise of the column is, read the introductory remarks I made here and here.

(Link updated) Stephannie White still trying to get Mike's death international coverage.

Stephannie White, the mother of 14-year-old Michael White who was found dead in a Gyeongsan sauna last May, currently finds a piece she wrote about the anniversary of her son's death among the most-viewed and most-shared stories on CNN's ireport for the past 24 hours. According to an email from her, if the story stays atop the most-viewed list it will be part of a Mothers' Day special on CNN. Visit the link and share the news.

Also make sure you pass along what's collected on MightieMike.com, including the podcasts. The last updates I've had here were last month when Stephannie toured the Gyeongsan sauna where Mike was found dead under suspicious circumstances, and when she sued the Korean government back in January.

Joint suicide attempt in Jorye-dong motel.

Shortly after midnight on the 2nd a man and a woman were found by rescue personnel in an unnamed motel in Suncheon's Jorye-dong after attempting suicide. The 45-year-old man from Yeosu and the 27-year-old woman from Gyeonggi met on an online "suicide cafe" on April 27th and had been living in the motel togehter since then with the intention of committing suicide together. The woman ended up calling 119; she surived, he didn't. Another article says the man was 31, that he drank poison, and that his suicide note says he owned a "유흥주점" (not sure how to best translate that) and was facing financial difficulties, presumably from the occassional police crackdown on them.

These suicide cafes have been in the news a lot lately. From the Herald:

Last month, 21 people attempted to commit joint suicide and 12 died in the Gangwon Province. Some were found to be members of a major online suicide community. Last Thursday, the police arrested the founder of the website for aiding and abetting suicide.

The Health Ministry and the KASP will assist the police's anti-suicide campaign by distributing visual and audio educational materials in schools all over the country. They will also offer counseling to those who hinted at suicidal intentions on the internet.

President Lee Myung-bak, during his radio speech yesterday, showed worries on the suicide trend in Korea, especially on the joint suicides of people who met through suicide websites.

"It is deplorable that such websites should exist at all," said Lee. "A person who has enough determination to commit suicide may be up to surviving any difficulties."

A recent OECD data showed that Korea's suicide rate is the highest among all OECD countries. Suicide was also the top-ranking cause of death for Koreans in their 20s, according to the National Statistical Office.

"Government policies are insufficient in eradicating harmful online information," said a police official. "Above all, the internet users themselves need to be aware of the dangers found on the internet and cooperate with these campaigns to clean up the cyber space."

I have no doubt that these occur more frequently around here, but I generally don't come across their stories unless by accident. That's how I learned about a joint suicide last November west of Suncheon's old downtown. That same day there was a suicide in another Jorye-dong motel; the article is unavailable now but the motel was also unnamed. From this YTN news report, though, you can tell that it's the Boston Motel (보스턴모텔), near the Jorye-dong Home Plus.

"Foreign Teachers Wrongly Portrayed in Korea."

I wrote a piece about ten common misconceptions Koreans have of native speaker teachers, and it appeared on the Korea Times site this evening. I hope to be allowed to turn each point into a full-length article, because each one really needs fuller explanation and amplification. And a word count limit meant that I had to leave quite a bit out. It's important to point out not only why these misconceptions exist and the extent to which they do, but why they're harmful to us.

There are other misconceptions that deserve treatment as well: we do drugs, we have AIDS, we are buffoons, we are on call to practice your English at your convenience, we are decoration, we are helpless, we aren't necessary, and of course the catch-alls like we don't understand Korean culture or we don't like Korea. I had a couple of those in the rough draft, but swapped them out later. There are other things that drive me up the wall---getting asked if I know bibimbap, being told kimchi is too spicy for me to eat---but it's probably not best to go running to the paper about those just yet.

I also left out that when these misconceptions are circulated they're often defended by saying "many foreigners" do this, "some foreigners" do that, or "I heard about" native speakers doing something or other. There are bad apples among us, of course, and it's insulting to pretend there aren't. But the actions of a small few are consistently used to disparage an entire demographic, which suggests a number of larger forces at work, issues I hope to explore later. Don't get me wrong, "we" have a lot of growing up to do, and if we want to grow as professionals we have to defeat these stereotypes by continuing to set positive examples. We need to set these positive examples for our Korean neighbors and also---and more importantly I believe---for each other, and for a quote-unquote community of teachers that does not yet exist, because too often our introduction to the country is in the form of bitter veterans who treat Korea as a place to survive, not succeed.

But as far as this article, I hope to draw attention to how we're portrayed in the media, and how this portrayal---by Koreans and foreigners alike--- is neither responsible nor accurate, and that even the act of trying to "prove" these negative stereotypes ought to lead one to evidence of just how uninformed they are.

No Hana Bank this weekend.

If you're a Hana Bank (하나은행) customer, you might be displeased to learn you won't be able to withdraw money from the 1st through 18:30 on the 4th.