Old photos on display at Gwangju Folk Museum.

From the museum website.

The website for GFN, Gwangju's English-language radio station, says that from April 6th through May 9th a collection of old photographs of Seoul will be on display at the Gwangju Folk Museum.

Gwangju Folk Museum is holding ‘세 이방인의서울회상전,’ or an exhibition of photographs about Seoul taken by three foreigners. The exhibition is available from April 5th through May 9th.

The event is co-hosted with Seoul History Museum. The 120 photographs were by Albert W. Taylor, a journalist living in Seoul in 1919, and Fred W. Dykes, a U.S. soldier working in Korea in 1947.

The little write-up, which I can't link to directly, doesn't say who the third foreigner is, but a thing in the JoongAng Daily last year when the exhibition was in Seoul said Nomura Motoyuki rounds out the trio. Another article in the JoongAng Daily a month earlier has a lot more information about the three men; an exceprt:

The exhibition shows the transformation of the city over the years as seen through the eyes - and more specifically the camera lenses - of three foreigners at different time periods. Albert W. Taylor (1875-1948), a reporter, attended the funeral of King Gojong (1852-1919) and observed the independence movement spreading around the nation in 1919. Fred W. Dykes, 81, a member of the U.S. infantry, witnessed the political turmoil in Korea following the country’s independence from Japan. And Motoyuki Nomura, 78, had a firsthand view of Korea’s economic growth in 1970s and early 1980s. About 120 of their photos are on display.

You can cheat if you want and see some of the photos via a Naver search.

The Gwangju Folk Museum (광주광역시립민속박물관) is in Yongbong-dong, on the edge of Jungoe Park---known informally as Biennale Park---right down a path from Biennale Hall (map here, in Korean). There's no subway station nearby, but the museum website says 11 different buses stop in the vicinity. It's a short walk from where I used to live, so please say hello for me. I went to the museum once because they used to have the annual Kimchi Festival in the park, so I got to see the three-dollar bill on display.

SMOE won't be hiring this fall, EPIK to take care of it.

News about the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education this year has been all bad. In March the former superintendent of SMOE was arrested for taking bribes from education officials and for unfairly promoting others in return for money. It also came out that Daewon Foreign Language High School took over two billion won in illegal "donations" from parents. Five elementary school principals were charged in February for taking bribes from companies that did their schools' extracurricular programs. Last week SMOE announced that 239 people will be penalized for enrollment funny business whereby rich kids were persuaded to claim they were poor to meet an enrollment quota for children from low-income or single-parent families. The Herald writes principals wrote false letters of recommendation for these children as well. In February SMOE said it would, as part of a reshuffle scheduled for March, move around 500 "executive-level employees" as, an official quoted in the JoongAng Daily said, "an attempt to cut the alleged corruption cycle that has surfaced recently."

Whether directly because of those problems or not, SMOE won't be hiring native speaker English teachers for fall 2010, a move I read about a little while ago and had confirmed in emails with a couple recruiters. Instead, as was first made public on Dave's ESL Cafe, English Program in Korea [EPIK] will be filling those spots in Seoul and hiring for all the city's public schools. Neither recruiter made any connection between the corruption scandals and the transfer of authority, and Ben Glickman of Footprints told me one explanation for the change might be EPIK's centralization of hiring for public schools over recent years. Both recruiters said there's no indication SMOE will resume hiring NSETs for itself beyond 2010.

It will be interesting to see if this trend means a change for Jeollanam-do, a province where most of the public school NSETs are not affiliated with EPIK. Gyeonggi-do is the only of the 16 administrative divisions that does not receive any teachers from EPIK, instead using its own GEPIK program. Centralization---something we saw with the implementation of policies like "deskwarming" and more standard vacation time across provinces---does make sense, I suppose, and it with fewer school boards and recruiters messing around it would help avoid screw-ups like last summer's where SMOE overhired by 100 and laid the teachers off days before they were to fly out. On the EPIK website is a breakdown of positions available for the fall semester (hiring from April 1st through June 15th):



Among others there are 300 available in Seoul, twenty in Gwangju, and there's one available in Jeollanam-do.

For what it's worth, a poster on Dave's---I know, I know---said he heard from a friend who heard from his whitey wrangler---I know, I know---that the change was because of the corruption scandal. The post continues:

[D]ue to an SMOE scandal at the supervisory level in SMOE HQ they no longer had the funds (and were focusing on reorganizing their upper levels) to hire NSETs come August[.]

Budget issues are the reason given by Glickman of Footprints for the cuts last summer:

Later we were given the reason that schools came in Seoul came in with less job orders at the last minute due to budget cuts. That is all we know at this point.Each agency was given the directive to cut teachers, and at the same time the SMOE administration contacted teachers directly from all agencies to inform them they no longer had jobs.

Though in a Kang Shin-who article, an education official is quoted as putting the blame on unreliable foreign teachers, but that could easily be an exaggeration or fabrication considering the source:

An official from the education office said, "Many foreign teachers give up working with us at the last minute, perplexing schools that are supposed to have native English speakers, so we secure extra teaching hopefuls every year. For this semester, we selected enough applicants for a possible shortage as we recruit a large number of teachers."

She added some of the foreign teachers whose contracts were withdrawn had failed to submit necessary documents and skip mandatory orientation programs.

Investigated by immigration over newspaper contributions, possible Kang Shin-who involvement.

You read in February in the Korea Times that I was getting ready to leave Korea, and you probably know by now that I left over a month ago. I never got around to expanding on that interview much, but I did comment that the move was planned for a while, and that I wasn't being forced out of the country, or wasn't so consumed by my so-called "anger" that I simply gave up. I've known I was leaving in 2010 for about a year, and I had told many people who know me in real life well before they read about it in the paper. That I chose not to renew my contract at my school when it expired in August 2009 is evidence enough, really. I wasn't forced out of the country, I left on my own terms, and I hold an affection for Korea that will likely last the rest of my life, and, hopefully, get passed on to future generations.

That said, something came up in December that made my last couple months very stressful, and made me want to give up this blogging business. I was under investigation by Korean immigration based on my contributions to local newspapers. I was summoned to the immigration office in Seoul twice in December, based on allegations that I was being paid for my writing while I was on an E-2 visa, and had to prove based on emails and my bank records that I wasn't paid by the Korea Herald, wasn't writing under any agreement or assumption that I would be paid, and that the 531,850 won I received from the Korea Times, illegally, in December 2009 was received after my E-2 visa expired.

I never learned who or what started the investigation, beyond being told "someone" called immigration about me. I do have my suspicions, and though I can't say for certain or with much evidence, can at least lay out some circumstances that need to be considered. On December 3rd in a telephone conversation with Korea Times reporter Kang Shin-who, he told me that he would check with immigration to see if I was legally able to contribute to the Korea Herald. On December 21st I received a phone call from a woman at immigration telling me I was under investigation and that I needed to come to Seoul as soon as possible. I met with two immigration officers on December 23rd and again on December 30th, over roughly six hours in all, and had my case forwarded to another office. Nothing eventually came of it, and I passed January and February without incident.

This started with a few emails between Kang Shin-who and I on December 3rd. I had been critical of Kang's reporting over 2009, and called him "Korea's worst journalist" in a November 24th post, based on his numerous distortions and fabrications. I learned about some more bad journalism in other articles, about Kang using unauthorized photos from other outlets in his pieces, and about publishing incorrect information. In a November 19 article about Naver and the Anti-English Spectrum, Kang wrote

Kim Kwang-tae, an official in charge of the case at the Suwon Immigration Office, said Vandom was still being sought, adding that her visa status was no longer valid.

Vandom responded in an email that she is not being "sought" and that both immigration and the reporter know where she is. Kang responded, she tells me, with

As a reporter, I should write what I heard, although he is lying.

I sent an email to Kang on the 3rd to get his reaction to this before I posted on it. I've written to Kang before, asking for comment on the claim that he distorted the words of the president of the International Graduate School of English in an April 22nd article, but he didn't respond. In the email I identified myself as "a freelance writer and a blogger at Brian in Jeollanam-do" and that I'd be writing a post on Andrea Vandom and the reporting on native speaker English teachers in general, and that I'd like to ask him a few questions. The questions were, as written in the email:

I. Are you a member of the Anti-English Spectrum Cafe? There is a contributor with your name.

II. What do you do for the club?

III. How do you respond to teachers who may be uncomfortable with the conflict of interest?

He responded an hour later saying we should meet face-to-face or talk over the phone, and since I was living in Gwangju, on the other side of the country, I called the number he sent me. We talked for a few minutes and he was courteous. He answered my questions, saying he was a member of the online cafe Anti-English Spectrum, but that he only used it to monitor the discussion and to, he says, correct any misinformation about teachers being written there, citing former ATEK spokesman Tony Hellmann by name.

He called me back an hour later in a very bad mood, asking me who I am, and saying he didn't know who I was when he answered those questions earlier. I reiterated that I was a blogger and a writer who, at the time, was contributing opinion pieces to the Korea Herald. He said he read my November post where I called him "Korea's worst journalist" and asked me if I thought the "Journalist Association of Korea and the Korea Press Foundation" were stupid for naming him Reporter of the Month. I stated some of my objections to his articles and the history of bias in the articles, but he said this was just my opinion, and that I'm not a reporter. He said calling him "Korea's worst journalist" hurt him, he asked what my job is---I was a student at the time---and said he'd check with immigration to see if I had permission to write. I think the conversation prompted one of the editor's to write the piece "Setting the Record Straight" on December 8th:

The Korea Times has recently learned about some "misunderstandings" regarding our coverage of foreigners in general and native English teachers in particular.

Rather than name names or nitpick over the contents of articles that apparently serve as the basis for that misunderstanding, we would like to share with our readers some principles this newspaper operates by.

The morning of December 21st I received a call from a woman claiming to be from Seoul immigration, telling me I was under investigation and asking me when I could come to the office. It sounds suspicious to receive a call from somebody, in English, identifying themselves as Seoul immigration and talking about an investigation, but, well, that's what happens.

I went to Seoul on December 23rd and met with two officers, one of whom was serving as an interpreter. They said they learned I was contributing to a Korean newspaper as an E-2 visa holder, and that this was in violation of my visa status. They had prepared a file with my information and the ten contributions I made to the Korea Herald from December 30, 2008 through December 2009, not including the few weeks I was in Pittsburgh in August and September. In the first interview they told me I was not permitted to be employed by a newspaper while in Korea on an E-2 visa or, as was the case from September through February, without a visa. Over the course of questioning I explained I was not paid by the Herald for my contributions, was not writing with the assumption of later being paid, was not writing under an agreement that promised payment, or receiving any other form of compensation. I told them I could prove this with my bank records and with emails from the editor of the "Expat Living" section. I was asked to fax a list of bank transactions, and to bring documents explaining where I was living, where I was studying, and where I was getting the money to do both, to a follow-up visit in the future.

I received a phone call the next week and went to the office a second time on December 30th. This session lasted nearly four hours, because the records showed that I indeed was paid by the Korea Times for contributions I made to them from September 2008 through April 2009. The editor had offered me 50,000 won per contribution, and I wrote nine over those 8 months. In emails I explained that I was not able to receive payment because I was on an E-2 visa, and that it was unlikely my school would give me permission to add the Korea Times as a second employer since my writing had gotten me in trouble a couple months earlier. I assumed at the time I wouldn't get in trouble for receiving payment once my visa was completed. I returned the money to the Times after my first meeting with immigration because, as I told the officers, I learned that wouldn't be the case.

The emails I provided from the Herald showed I was under no agreement to be compensated for my contributions, and my transaction records demonstrated the only money I received outside my contract was the 531,850 won sent by the Korea Times, money I returned to the Times after my first meeting.

Adding length to the conversation was the issue of opinion pieces and letters to the editor. I was asked to become a "contributing writer" to the Korea Times in August 2008, with the promise of 50,000 won per piece. However, I had written at least five other pieces before that, some of which were letters to the editor. In the immigration office we went through each one looking for the "contributing writer" tag, but I did spend quite a bit of time explaining the opinion page: they accept and encourage contributions from anyone, and these are given and printed without payment and without any promise of payment.

The officers were also interested to learn about my conversation with Kang. I have no proof that it was him, but he was the person who told me he'd go to immigration. Contributing even more to my suspicions was the two officers only having record and knowledge of my contributions to the Herald. This is the paper I mentioned over the phone to Kang, but everybody knows---and a quick look at this site will confirm---that I had a weekly column in the JoongAng Daily, contributions to the Gwangju News, an article in Busan Haps, and several articles appear in the Korea Times, for which I was actually paid. I was never paid for my articles in the Gwangju News, JoongAng Daily, or Busan Haps---works out for me now, but I wished many times I could have been compensated for the countless hours of reading and writing---but somebody who did their homework could have simply presented my body of work to immigration and assumed something would be out of place.

Regardless, I broke the law, and taking money for my writing was only one of the mistakes I made. I was open with immigration and admitted my fault, and told them I would accept whatever punishment they deemed necessary. I had to write and sign a statement, and approve everything the interpreter had written down, and then my case was forwarded to another office that would decide the penalty and call me for another hearing.

Like I said I passed the next two months without incident and without even hearing from immigration, though the idea of Anti-English Spectrum attention was one reason I didn't announce where I was or what I was doing in January. I called one of the officers a few days before I left Korea, to let them know I was leaving and to see if they had made a decision. The officer was surprised I hadn't heard back, but said that no news meant there was likely no penalty, something the officer checked on and confirmed to me in a later phone call.

This whole episode has implications for other bloggers and writers, and this recent incident together with my netizen run-in in 2008 made for a pretty nice blueprint of how to shut foreign writers up. A student, coworker, reader, or reporter who doesn't care for what a foreigner is writing in a publication can simply call immigration. Even if that writer is unpaid---most "opportunities" don't pay---the aggravation of having to go to immigration multiple times, having to open up your banking records, having to contact your editors and employers, and having to prove your innocence is enough to make somebody want to quit. I was fortunate that I was between classes at two different schools, and not being employed as a teacher. I nearly lost my job in 2008 because of my writing, and spent a good while in the school's doghouse, so I can just imagine what the reaction would have been were I summoned to immigration during school hours, and were my principals and coteachers subject to questioning as well.

Many English-language newspapers and magazines in Korea turn to bloggers for material because they're some of the only ones providing original English-language content written by foreigners for foreigners in the country. For obvious reasons I won't list all those contributors here, but there's really nothing stopping a reader or competitor from calling immigration and having them look at each and every one of them. If nothing sticks, the writer will probably be exhausted from the process and might very well give it up. If something does stick, well, then they're out of business and potentially out of the country. For foreign writers out there, if they are in fact writing for free---again, most "opportunities" don't pay---it really behooves them to have it made very plain by their editors that they aren't to be paid, will not be paid in the future, will not receive any sort of compensation in lieu of money, and are under no agreement to receive anything at any time for their submissions.

This mess informed a good bit of my perspective in that Korea Times interview I did in late-January (and don't think I didn't hesitate about accepting that request, considering everything I'd been through).

That said, Deutsch, is philosophical about his experience, and says he has considered whether starting his blog was a good thing to do.

"Sometimes I think whether starting a blog was a good idea. I think more harm has come from it than good," Deutsch said, "I don't like opening myself up to criticism and threats to my livelihood.

"It's (a question of) whether you want to stand up for what you believe or keep your head down."

This isn't the only meeting I've had with quote-unquote the authorities, or the only threat against me. I was also told by someone I'll just call an unidentified government source that I'm being watched and that I need to keep my head down. This is the first time, though, somebody has tried to use a government office to silence my opinion, and I'm glad the officers didn't allow that to happen.

Because I knew so far in advance I was leaving Korea, believe it or not, I had plenty of time to think about regrets and reflection. I still have an overwhelmingly positive view of Korea, and not only because it introduced me to my fiancee. But, I can't deny wondering about my contribution, if I was the best teacher I could be for our students, the best coworker I could be in the office, and the best person I could be as an educated man living in a foreign country, and all the attention my blog has brought has made me think about how my life would be different had I spent my time in other ways. I won't deny there's been some interesting stuff here, some informative posts about culture, or festivals, or whatever, and even some posts of good use to what we call the expatriate community. Sitting in an immigration office, though, with your "contributions" sitting in front of you in a file, and ready to maybe get you kicked out of the country, you do start thinking about what you've done with your time.

The Times interview continues:

When asked how he would advise future bloggers, Deutsch preached caution.

"I wouldn't advise against it but I would advise them to know what they are getting into. I would advise caution; you're in a place where netizens are powerful," he said.

Unless this type of reckless attack through immigration happens with more frequency, most bloggers in Korea will never approach getting near the vicinity of an area within throwing distance of the level of visibility my site has had. That's not me being an arrogant, deluded prick, that's me saying all this controversy didn't magically appear, but started because I was writing about controversial issues in very public places. It took a couple years of very hard work to be a fairly well-recognized Korea-based blog, and that's not something casual writers, or even serious bloggers, will stumble across accidentally. I don't necessarily want you to rethink blogging, and it would be hypocritical of me to say "be nice," but you should ask yourself if you really want your little hobby to turn into something lifestyle-threatening. You have to ask yourself whether you think your opinions about Mad Bull Shit, English education, or shitty journalism are worth getting fired over, and you have to ask yourself if you want to make that teaching job something much more difficult than it really needs to be.

The thing to remember is that when we're brought in by schools we're on an E-2 visa, one that really restricts what we're allowed to do outside of work. There may also be some other restrictions placed on us being government employees, I don't know. When I was in trouble in 2008, my school said it was because a public servant like a teacher employed by the government shouldn't make themselves a public figure. Now, this was said by unionized teachers who spent their weekends organizing candlelight rallies and protests against the Lee Myung-bak government, so take their position for what it's worth, but you do have restrictions on you because of your visa and your job.

I would like to say this sort of thing isn't exclusive to Korea. Just looking at Pittsburgh, my hometown, a prominent local blogger formerly known as Pittgirl was fired from her job last summer two days after making her real name public, and I'll bet there are a lot of companies that don't want their employees blogging. Saying "netizens are powerful," as I did, is certainly true, but let's remember the people who took their dislike of me to an extreme was a bitter guy in Hwasun county married to an immigrant, and one other guy last year. I count many Koreans as my readers now, and have had plenty of Koreans stick up if not for me than for my right to say what I want to say.

I will also say this wasn't orchestrated by the Times, and if it did come from somebody there, it was not something that came from the top. I've had many email conversations with the editor there, and found him to be a thoughtful, considerate man. His was the first paper to publish my stuff, he encouraged me to write on a number of topics, and he listened to my complaints on, among other topics, Jon Huer, the shitty letters to the editor, and Kang Shin-who. We ultimately had some disagreements about the direction of their paper and the representation of native speaker English teachers, but I've had no reason to change my opinion of his character. That immigration didn't first focus on the contributions to the Korea Times and the payment received in return tells me this didn't come from the editors there.

There is no solid evidence pointing to the person or group behind this investigation. I can't come out and accuse a particular person, I can simply lay out a sequence of events. It could have been Kang Shin-who, as he is the first and only person in my 2+ years of writing in Korea to actually bring up immigration. It could have been somebody with the Anti-English Spectrum, if Kang tipped them off. It could have been another reader who wanted to give immigration a try. Or, it could have been another foreigner who didn't like my site or me. My biggest and loudest critics have always been other foreigners.

Kang has of course denied his involvement. I was going to let this whole issue go away, at least for a few months or for a time when I wouldn't have so many other posts on my site, because I don't want to spend a lot of time writing about Korea with so many other things in my life. But, I received an email from Kang Shin-who yesterday, asking me not to print his photo on my site without permission. He finished the email with:

Pluse, I heard from the Korea Immigration Service that you were
investigated over breach of immigration regulations.
Could you tell me the exact reason why you have to leave Korea?

That shithead line is what brings this post out now. I replied that I had a very good idea who told immigration about me, and that I'd be sharing his threat against me with my readers, to which he responded a few hours later:

By the way I don't know what you are talking about and I don't care
what you are writing about because I have never read your story.
What I have seen so far from your blog were the title "worst
journalist" and my picture, while I was searching my previous
articles.

I fully expect he'll retaliate with more threats or with something in the paper, so I wanted to write something now---in spite of it being April 1st---to not be caught off-guard.

I'll reiterate that in spite of what some readers think, or what the "'Angriest Blogger' Leaving Korea" headline might lead you to believe, I wasn't forced out of Korea, and I left simply because it was the right time. Though my fiancee and I both like Korea, and have plenty of job opportunities there, neither of us are Korean citizens and with limited Korean-language skills it just wouldn't make sense to stay there and try to raise a family. Furthermore, it's smarter to try and reenter the US job market now, at 29, than to wait a few years when we're both older and perhaps further out of touch. I had some pretty interesting job offers back in Korea, in education and in media, but even though my mind was made up long before this past winter, I'm not sure I'd want to continue as a writer if I could be called down to immigration or the police station each time I publish something controversial. As a non-citizen engaged and eventually married to another non-Korean, my visa and our livelihood would be always be at the mercy of unfriendly readers.

This all gives bloggers and writers something to think about. They shouldn't cower to bullies, especially if those bullies are the same ones on a mission to defame native speaker English teachers. But they should be aware of what those bullies are up to, and what they'll do to keep them quiet.

Don't forget the cherry blossoms in Suncheon.

In March the Korea Tourism Organization put out a thing announcing the anticipated blooming season for cherry blossoms in South Korea. They estimated places down south, like Gwangju and Yeosu, would go in late-March or early-April. The KTO and had profiles on top spots in the country for viewing them, places where you'll get to share the sidewalks with thousands of people who have the same idea.

If you're in eastern Jeollanam-do I'd recommend heading to Suncheon, a city of 270,000 and my home for two years. There's a stream that runs through town, and it's lined with rapeseed flowers (유채꽃), forsythia (개나리) and cherry blossoms (벚꽃). Here are some pictures I've taken in years past:







Those are taken from the four posts I've done on Suncheon's spring flowers:

* April 5, 2009: Beautiful flowers in Suncheon.
* April 3, 2009: Flowers n'at last weekend in Suncheon
* March 13, 2009: Cherry blossoms in Suncheon
* March 30, 2008: Beautiful day in the neighborhood.

That stream, 동천, runs all the way to Suncheon Bay, and since last fall you've been able to rent a bicycle to go from town to the bay. There are 100 bikes distributed among 5 stations, and by clicking on the stations on the homepage you can check availability.

Blogging by the numbers: the 10 Magazine poll.

Last week 10 Magazine released the results of their April Reader's 10 "Favorite Blog in Korea" poll, and Brian in Jeollanam-do placed third, sort of, in a contest in which the true second-place blog was disqualified and which created a lot of unnecessary controversy among the small, incestuous K-blogging community. The blog in first place finished with only 17% of the votes.


Congratulations "Other!" Made with the "Create A Graph" page on the National Center for Education Statistics website.

I'll keep my comments brief, and because there are few things more tedious to most readers than bloggers blogging about blogging, I'll use hide the rest of them behind the "Read More" button. You can also see what Kimchi Icecream and Korean Rum Diary had to say.

Busy day.

Unlike last year, I won't do any April Fool's posts this time around. I do have some posts coming out today, but they aren't spoofs or hoaxes (Seoul really is building a third English Village). In 2009 I planned on doing a bunch of posts on April 1st in imitation of other bloggers, but I thought better of it and figured that making fun of everyone else isn't the best way to win friends. This year I thought about changing my site over to K-pop stuff for the day, and doing a dozen posts where I just steal pictures of Korean actresses and boybands off other sites, but I didn't want to step on PopSeoul's toes.

I do have a couple other posts coming out today, not in honor of the day but just because that's where my schedule's at. I have a special treat, though, and will be publishing a post today that is so "good" I had to save it until after I left. I was happy to just let it drop, seeing as I don't live there anymore and don't want to get worked up anymore about what goes on over there, but an email yesterday from one of the parties involved made me say "well, fuck it." He writes,

"Could you tell me the exact reason why you have to leave Korea?"

Yes, yes I think I will. See you back here later today.

Seoul opening third English Village.

Gyeonggi English Village advertises they're "Creating Global Korean." Given how those language immersion experiences turn out, that sounds about right.

The Korea Times has the story:

Most English immersion villages are running deep in the red, with fewer students enrolling in classes at them.

Against this dismal background, Seoul City Hall is opening its third English village. Its existing two are making ends meet thanks to a city contract to have schools send their students to them in large numbers.

. . .

According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, English villages across the country lost 21 billion won in 2007. Data from 2008 was unavailable

Experts say the government needs to conduct thorough research before they build the special-purpose villages.

“Local English villages are suffering because municipal governments invested in them competitively without conducting appropriate research on demand, location and scale,” said Lee Byung-min, an English education professor at Seoul National University.

“Seoul villages are making profits as they are receiving students from schools and are included in courses as part of the elementary school curriculum.”

These types of projects really aren't that uncommon, and they seem to run into a lot of problems, too. My first contract in Korea was with an "English Theme Park" planned for Seoul's Gwangjin-gu in 2005, but it went under before it opened its doors. I then signed a contract with an English Village scheduled for Incheon through the city government, but I lost my job with that one before I started the paperwork because the opening was delayed. There are also English Towns in nearly every city and county in Jeollanam-do, though certainly not on as grand a scale as the ones in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do, or the foreigner ghetto "English Education City" planned for Jeju. I was hired to work at one in Gangjin county starting in August 2006, as part of a project that would phase native speaker English teachers out of schools in that rural area, but the opening was delayed by 18 months and so I was foisted on some uncooperative elementary schools instead.

In February I visited the Gyeonggi English Village in Paju, but I didn't get enough to warrant a post on it at the time. We not only picked a cold, rainy day to show up, we picked the one day of the week (Monday) when no programs were scheduled. And, if it weren't for the song "Kickin' it in Geumchon"

South Korea’s got Jeju, South Korea’s got Seoul
Busan and Ilsan if that’s how you roll
But when you work at EV, and live in Paju
Then the town to get down is 15 minutes from you

I would have had a hell of a time getting there at all since it's not clearly marked from Paju. I admit I went as kind of a cynic, having read the news reports picking on the place---on Korea Beat here and here---so I was both happy and sad when some of the shopkeepers spoke Korean to my fiancee, and greeted us with 어서 오세요, in violation of the "Only English, No Korean!" policy. I didn't press the issue because I wasn't "working" that day, and I didn't make any attempt to chat with the foreign employees on their day off. We enjoyed walking around the grounds, but it was a little disappointing that my fiancee, herself a learner of English, didn't really have much opportunity to use the language or be immersed in it. The fairytales they read aloud over the speakers in unnatural tones don't count as "immersion."





It's worth a visit only as a curiosity, in a country where they build English Theme Parks, but just be aware that the programs aren't aimed at adults, and there won't be much for you to do but look around and avoid the students. The bad reports in the media, and negative experiences from teachers and native English speakers, are helping guarantee the place gets more work as a filming location for music videos, commercials, and TV shows than as an educational center.

Festivals in Mokpo, Yeongam, and Yeosu this weekend.

Because of time constraints I didn't do the typical regional spring festival preview this year, but I will try to write them up as they come up. This weekend there are four going on, including the Gwangju Spring Flower Expo that started last weekend. Most of the information available is in Korean, but the advertisements feature lots of white people, so you should go.



Mokpo's annual Yudalsan Flower Festival (유달산꽃축제) will take place this year from Friday, April 2nd through 4th on and around Yudalsan, the 228-meter-high mountain on the west side of town. You'll find a program of scheduled performances and events here, in Korean. I went in 2008, but didn't notice much except the view from atop the mountain, and an upsetting animal show. Southeast of the mountain you'll find a lot of what inspired Robert Koehler to call Mokpo "an outdoor museum of colonial Korea," including a cafe called "House Full of Happiness" (행복이 가득한 집) you ought to visit (map here, in Korean). A short taxi ride to the east, or a long walk, you'll come to "Museum Road" and later to Peace Park (평화광장), which stretches along Yeongsan Lake. You can see these attractions on a large tourist map provided by the Mokpo city page.



In Yeongam county, from the 3rd through the 6th, is the Wangin Culture Festival (영암왕인문화축제), with the tagline this year

A Trip Full of Energy!
To Yeongam of Wangin,
a World of Cherry Blossoms.

Wangin (왕인) is the Korean name for a man better known as "Wani," believed to have traveled from Korea to Japan in the 6th century to spread Confucianism and culture there. Yeongam county celebrates its connection to Wangin with festivals each spring and fall and with landmarks, though the authenticity of this connection has been disputed. Wikipedia says, under "political exploitations":

Earlier geography books including the Taekriji (1751) never link Wani to Yeongam. The first known record that associates Wani with Yeongam is the Joseon Hwanyeo Seungnam (朝鮮寰輿勝覧; 1922-37) by Yi Byeong-yeon (이병연, 李秉延). It claims that Wani was born in Yeongnam without providing any evidence. It is known that around the same time, a Japanese monk named Aoki Keishō claimed on the basis of "oral tradition" that Yeongam was Wani's homeland. In 1932 he made an appeal to erect a bronze statue of Wani in Yeongam.

A new myth about Wangin was publicized in South Korea in 1970s. In 1972 the social activist Kim Changsu reported a series of essays titled "Korean spirit embodied in Japan," which appealed to South Koreans who felt oppressed by the legacy of Japanese colonization. In this framework, Wani was regarded as Korean without doubt.[citation needed] Upon being informed by a reader from Yeongam, Kim issued a statement identifying Yeongam as the birthplace of Wani in the next year. In spite of the weakness of the evidence, Wani's "relic site" was designated as Cultural Asset No. 20 of South Jeolla Province in 1976.

The development of Wani's "historical sites" was led by the governments of South Jeolla Province and Yeongam Country. The construction was carried out from 1985 to 1987, "restoring" the "birthplace", schools where Wani allegedly studied, and others. Yeongam Country started to fully exploit the old-looking new theme park as a tourist attraction because the introduction of local autonomy of 1990 forced the local government to look for its own source of revenue. For example, Youngam County began to host the annual "Wangin Culture Festival" in 1997 that was previously organized by local people under the name of "Cherry blossom festival".

Links and footnotes removed.

The "energy" refers to the 氣 (기, better known as "chi" in English) associated with the area.

Anyway, you'll find a timetable of scheduled events here, in Korean, and you'll find a trilingual leaflet with very small writing here. The "Korea and Japan Friendship Performance" takes place on Saturday at 1, and the parade replicating his trip to Japan, seen below passing beneath the cherry blossoms, takes place on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday at 2 pm.



Yeongam county is just south of Mokpo, west of my old home in Gangjin, and south of Gwangju. The festival website doesn't have transportation information, so I guess it's top secret. It's spread out over a few sites found just west of Wolchulsan: "The Historical Site of Dr. Wangin" and Gurim Village. Yeongam's official site says buses run that way every twenty minutes. If you check that URL you'll see it says "unpleasant-bus," and after spending several hours looking up stuff about these festivals, I'm pretty much at that point, too.

There's also a festival in Yeosu, on the other side of the province. The Yeongchuisan Azalea Festival (영취산진달래축제) takes place from April 2nd through the 4th, a mountain in northeastern Yeosu.


Source.

As the festival website says, there will be shuttle buses between the Intercity Bus Terminal (시외버스터미널) and the festival grounds five times a day. There will also be shuttle buses from Yeocheon Station (여천역) five times a day, buses that will also stop at city hall.

They're also looking to crown a Ms. Azalea (진달래아가씨), but unfortunately you all missed the registration deadline.



And, like I posted last week, the Gwangju Spring Flower Expo (광주봄꽃박람회) runs through the 4th. Gwangju's local yodelling club will perform on Saturday and Sunday.

Shopping and taxis highest among tourist annoyances.

Last week the Korea Herald wrote that tourists site taxis and shopping among their top difficulties in Korea. Here are a few excerpts:

A recent survey conducted by the Korea Tourism Organization shows that the number of calls made by disgruntled tourists in 2009 saw a 13.4 percent increase from the previous year.

Of the complaints, difficulties while shopping and disputing costs of taxi fares topped the list with 32.5 percent and 17.5 percent of the total 468 complaints filed.

. . .

Complaints from Westerners aren't as numerous.

According to the KTO's Byun Eun-hye, who works with the organization's complaint center, the majority of the reports regarding shopping mishaps were filed by Japanese and Chinese tourists.

"We've gotten numerous calls from Japanese tourists saying they received the wrong orders such as shoes that were not the size they had purchased or custom tailored clothes that didn't fit when they received them - or even bizarre instances where they purchased a cosmetic product only to find something entirely different once they opened the box," she said.

. . .

Some Koreans have been saying for years that foreign tourists should be expected to possess a minimum level of Korean. Others ask for better English education in the travel industry here, citing Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East as places where locals communicate with tourists primarily in English, rather than in their own local languages.

"It's difficult to say whether we are trying too hard to cater and to accommodate foreign tourists and not encouraging them more to try and speak Korean," said Kang Oki, the Korea Tourism Organization's executive director of public relations.

On that last point, The Marmot's Hole wrote:

I think phrasebooks are always a good thing to bring along when you travel — trying to communicate is part of the fun, after all, and it’s just common politeness to at least try to communicate with locals in their language — but it seems to me the KTO is in the business of making things easier for tourists (not the business of promoting the Korean language, which is the business of its parent organization, the Ministry of Culture), and that it’s in the best interests of tourism-related industries to have staff that can communicate with their customers.

I've mentioned taxis a few times on this site, mostly in regard to the foreigner-only cabs introduced last year to make travel easier for tourists, and I'll reiterate that I've found cab drivers in Korea to be friendly and patient, for the most part. With very few exceptions, their cabs are new and clean, and they don't expect passengers to tip them for doing their jobs.

I'll also bring up a little of what I mentioned on Alex's Adventures in Asia's post. My fiancee is Japanese, and walking around with her highlighted the different ways foreign customers are treated. Shopkeepers were very rarely actually rude to me, but they did have a tendency to shout English at my white face, or use baby English when it might be easier to simply speak Korean, or simpy hover beside me without saying anything. Koreans generally aren't as proficient in Japanese as they are in English, but in Busan and Insa-dong---which get a lot of Japanese tourists---it's not unusual to find clerks who do have a good command of the language. In Busan's Nampo-dong, for instance, shop employees will stand out on the street and pull Japanese tourists into the store, or shout the latest sales and specials to passersby. Adding another dimension to it is that my fiancee looks Korean: not because "all look same" to white people, but most Koreans were fooled, too. Before they learned Korean is not her native language, and even after, Koreans would often speak in Korean to her, and more often then not would exclude me from the conversation completely.

When you meet a white person in Korea, it's safe to assume they're an English teacher, and we know the stereotypes that go along with that. When you meet a Japanese person here, it's safe to assume they're a tourist and that they're looking to spend money. And, Japanese are the largest group of tourists to Korea, a big reason "complaints from Westerners [to the KTO] aren't as numerous". According to the stats provided by the Korea Tourism Organization for January, 209,184 Japanese entered the country, the most of any nationality. China was second with 91,252, all of North America had 53,839, and all of Europe had 46,509.

The KTO's English-language assistance line is 1330.

Anyang Halla, your 2009-2010 Asia League Ice Hockey champions.

From the Anyang Halla site.

Reader "This Is Me Posting" emailed and told me the Anyang Halla (안양한라) became the Asia League Ice Hockey champions Sunday night, defeating the Nippon Paper Cranes in overtime of Game 5 a five-game series. This is the first time a non-Japanese team has won the league championship. The Cranes won it last year, and have won it three of the seven times it's been awarded since the league formed in 2003-04. There's more on the Anyang Halla official site, in English as well as Korean, including this game recap.

We've had conversations about Korean ice hockey a couple times on this site: in November to remind readers that there are two pro teams in South Korea, and in February when the Korean government said it was going to invest in "unpopular" sports in order to get more Olympic medals. The Halla play in Anyang, a city just outside of Seoul, and have their home games at the Anyang Sports Complex. For Game 3 of the championship series, the last game in Anyang this season, 1,496 people showed up on a Wednesday evening to watch.