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This one comes via No Cut News. Read it and weep, fellas. I'm planning to write the article's author to ask why no balance was provided, such as interviewing foreign teachers, so let me know in the comments what your thoughts are. And of course I will publish any reply. Hat tip to Gusts of Popular Feeling, which I just realized has its own translation up. The more the merrier, I guess. # Last May, 30-year-old Canadian Mr. K, an English teacher in a foreign language hagwon, was caught by police for habitually using drugs in his home, which was stocked with devices for using drugs. It was discovered that Mr. K had taught lessons while hallucinating, and had been stripped of his teaching license in his home country after being convicted of assault. # Last August, 29-year-old American Mr. G and 14 others were nabbed by police for gambling millions of won over the course of several years somewhere in Seoul. It was found that some of them were habitual drug users, and others were teaching in famous language hagwons without a work visa or on a tourist visa.
These problematic foreign instructors such as them, who are drug users, gamblers, violent, and unqualified, had their criminal acts uncovered by the internet cafe "Anti-English Spectrum" located on a famous portal site. For the past three years, citizens shocked by the illegal acts of unqualified foreign instructors have come together in this group and successfully uncovered 100 foreigners who used drugs, committed violence, or had no visa, and reported them to authorities who deported them. When the group's members find a problematic foreigner they place a tip on the website or send a note to the site's manager, and on average two to three months are spent gathering information. Then, when the evidence and scenes of the crimes have been confirmed, the cafe members go straight to the police. The information is gathered in stages by meeting with parents whose children attend English hagwons and Korean teachers in them and by going to bars and restaurants popular with foreigners. 39-year old Lee Eun-ung, manager of the site, said, "if you are assaulted or harmed by a foreigner and go to the police their identities are exposed and there is the burden of investigation, so if you go through our cafe members we can advise you and alert police... Recently it is also good foreigners, whose image is harmed by a few problematic foreigners, who alerted us when they saw with their own eyes a problematic foreigner." On the 6th, the cafe members played a role in foreigners being arrested together for using drugs known as "skunk" and "spice" in nightclubs in Itaewon and Hongdae. This year the cafe members discovered foreigners openly discussing drug use on the internet, and in February they alerted authorities. But the site is mainly active in the capital region of Seoul and Gyeonggi-do, and they say there are increasing examples of some problematic foreign instructors moving to the provinces to escape notice. Unqualified foreign instructors are increasingly moving to Busan and Gyeongsangnam-do, where police enforcement is lax, citizens are less vigilant, and foreign langauge lesson fees are high and instructor's salaries similar to Seoul. In fact, in the foreign instructor community it is known that in Busan and Gyeongsangnam-do they can work relatively free of police enforcement, and even without a work visa there are ways to be hired by famous Busan langage hagwons, and other ways to stay for a long time on a tourist visa. Also, until last year the site had almost no tips on cases of foreign instructors committing bad acts in the Busan and Gyeongsangnam-do areas, but this year there has been a 20 percent to 30 percent increase in such cases, and also this year five foreigners have been deported because of information on the site. Because of this, some say, there is an urgent need in the Busan area for education offices and police to crack down on unqualified lecturers teaching, doing private lessons, using drugs, and gambling, and for vigilance by citizens.
Comments
It's like trying to ban a book. It just gives the book a lot more attention. Have we learned nothing from history? How many more people are going to be exposed to that website now because ATEK decided to pick a stupid fight? The whole thing makes me shake my head in disbelief.
They can't speak English, that's why they don't interview foreign teachers.
Uh, if you had read the article, you'd see there is no mention of ATEK at all. AES is obviously a hate group, founded by some angry men who saw pictures of Korean women with foreign men and got pissed about it. They started out stalking foreign men, sometimes for periods of up to six months. Now they are influencing Korean government immigration policy. Their real ambitions are covered up, they now say that they do this kind of thing to help out Koreans who are afraid to go to the police. Apparently Korean citizens are afraid to talk to their own police force, which makes no sense at all.
KoreaBeat wrote: I'm planning to write the article's author to ask why no balance was provided, such as interviewing foreign teachers, so let me know in the comments what your thoughts are. Balance or not, that this group continues to get treated seriously is because the non-AES people who have looked deeply into AES have not done what they need to do: Go to the NHRCK and make a formal complaint about them so they'll get designated as a hate group. By discrediting them that way, it will seriously deflate their efforts to gain influence in the press and legislature. http://kushibo.blogspot.com/2009/11/nsets-versus-aes-in-kt-or-yankers-of.html ATEK, by going after getting their site gutted, has gone about this the wrong way. They've turned it into a he-said-she-said war of words that gets messily entangled into free speech issues, instead of pursuing it as a hate group's attack on injured parties. And now AES has the chance to gut their site on their own, removing offensive material so that later on that case for a hate group designation will be harder to come by.
Wow, alot of blame put on ATEK here, when there is no mention of them in this article. I'm aware of the ATEK angle, and I don't see why they are to blame for AES and their continued good exposure in the local press. BTW, has the NHRCK ever designated a Korean group as a hate group? Why would they do so in the case of the AES group? Heck of alot easier to get them kicked off Naver than to get NHRCK going on it. And it would kick up some dirt in the local papers and maybe even overseas.
It is so easy for them to make up these little "blips" about foreigners- "Mr. K from somewhere in Seoul did something called "spice??" somewhere in Seoul, and he is a foreigner, but we can't give any other info other than he is living illegally, dating Korean women, doing drugs, teaching with no qualifications(which Korea doesn't require anyway), sleeping with Korean women, gambling, eating out in public, and last but not least, infecting our Korean women with his western ideals." If they could document actual cases with names, dates, and etc, then it would be half way believeable. This is the equivalant of FOX News from the US... fear mongering. We are not going to be able to change these peoples minds, they want us to fight with them. Someone should point out that their gov't doesn't require that teachers have anything more than a BA, and that is why so many people are not qualified.
"Someone should point out that their gov't doesn't require that teachers have anything more than a BA, and that is why so many people are not qualified. " As pointed out by Brian, they are qualified with a BA because they are meeting the qualifications for the job set forth by the government. (Come here you dead horse!!)
I can't wait until they start going after us foreign corporate employees. Just to list my sins in advance: 1. I am a white American 2. I work for a foreign company 3. I am in a long-term relationship with a Korean woman and will probably marry her, thus depriving a male AES member of his birthright 4. I drink alcohol at bars in spots that are popular with foreigners, sometimes to the point of silliness 5. I did not graduate from Seoul National University, Korea University or Yonsei University 6. I once told a Seoul taxi driver to go "F" himself after trying to charge me twice the meter 7. I often eat Japanese food for lunch 8. etc.
@EC But the important question is: Takeshima or Dokdo? Because you eat the food of the filthy Japanese aggressors, I'm assuming you're siding with their oceanic imperialism. For shame!
"And now AES has the chance to gut their site on their own, removing offensive material so that later on that case for a hate group designation will be harder to come by." That's why you mirror their site elsewhere, where they can't edit or delete what they wrote, or rip it to a hard drive, so you have a copy of it for later.
That last one was supposed to have my name on it.
I was wrong, you are still getting many comments. But truthfully, I may have to start a blog on this Anti-English spectrum character.I'll sleep with the guy if I have to. I fucking rock! Im insane!
I'm going to print all the hate material by AES on NAVER that Andrea Vandom provided, then I'll file a lawsuit against Naver if they don't pull of the specific hate/defamation speech.
I was thinking of starting a website to try and target illegal koreans back home. Now, I'm going to just start an anti-korean national website.
Make that an anti-korea website, not anti-Korean website. If the pics on ES in 2005 were of foreign girls, AES and no korean man would ever care. There might have been some korean guys how might have gotten all hot and bothered. I save stuff like this translation to deter foreigners from coming to korea. So far I've influenced at least three people not to step foot in korea and will continue to do so. To show people how it really is in korea, I've shown dozens of people articles like these as a primer: http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/11/i-got-arrested.html That's my fav http://koreasparkling.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/another-confirmation-on-mixed-race-children-are-not-koreans/ http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/08/113_50535.html http://jellomando.blogspot.com/2007/10/racism-and-xenophobia.html http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200708/200708210007.html Start showing these and similiar articles to non-koreans to educate them. It's time for an Anti-korea Spectrum. It isn't racist though because koreans who are anti-American or anti-foreign aren't racists and they have better morals than all non-koreans.
So nice to see that idiocy abounds on both sides.
Looks like someone is ready to go home soon.
One of the many Anonymouses wrote: As pointed out by Brian, they are qualified with a BA because they are meeting the qualifications for the job set forth by the government. (Come here you dead horse!!) You're confusing being eligible with being qualified. Of course, it is ultimately the fault of Korean employers and Korean government policy that so many uncredentialed "teachers" are flocking to Korea and then are unable or unwilling to enhance their skill set with a credential once they're here.
One of the many Anonymouses wrote: That's why you mirror their site elsewhere, where they can't edit or delete what they wrote, or rip it to a hard drive, so you have a copy of it for later. Well, yes, good sirs, this isn't their actual site, but a site we are telling you contains all the things their site used to contain so please make a judgement that they're a hate group based on this mirror site that's not theirs.
Since you guys are talking about hate groups here, what about the expat's blogs about Korea, that talk shits about Koreans? The most usual qualities to describe Koreans in these blogs are words like "idiots" and "retarded".
Anonyous, I'm not a big fan of curtailing free speech at all. I'd say let the idiotic remarks stand for themselves. Now if it starts moving toward egging people on toward violence or some such, then that's a different story. The problem with AES, and this is what Ms Vandom and ATEK seem to have forgotten, is that AES's supposed power is not in their website but in their alleged connections to legislators and in their being used by lazy reporters writing about NSETs. And their primary hate group behavior was in their off-line stuff, like stalking and what-not. None of those are addressed in the Naver removal campaign, and it has only served to weaken the case against AES in the long run. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/11/117_55811.html http://kushibo.blogspot.com/2009/11/and-another-thing.html
The Korean, Kushibo, You guys are missing the point. Something is causing the people who are complaining here to complain. It isn't happening in a vacuum. Everyone has heard the phrase "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," but there is another phrase that is more appropriate for this situation - "Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely." These things are called self-fulfilling prophecies - by claiming foreigners (hate that word so much) act badly and cutting the international community out of a meaningful stake in the game, Koreans are assuring they will act badly. Without a stake, workers feel like they are just slaves - ask any Korean labor union about that. You can't invite people over and then continually focus on them as "them", as opposed to "us." This is the basic cancer at the center of the problem. Every person complaining here knows all the many meanings of "them". Ultimately, "It's not my country," "It's not my workplace," "It's not my sister," "I'll take every chance to secretly hit back that I can," is the natual result.
Yes, Anonymous Cowherd, I do get that. There is a serious problem with marginalizing people. (At the same time, the Anglophone community is largely self-marginalizing, with no small number of people getting themselves worked up by reading all the anti-NSET stuff in the K-blogs and then assuming that anyone and everyone in Korea is looking down on them or treating them badly... but that's another topic.) And I'm not saying that AES is okay. Far from it. I've been saying for some time now — and definitely before this Naver speech issue went down — that this needs to be formally dealt with at the NHRCK or some other appropriate agency to get AES listed as a hate group. Now that chance may have been dramatically reduced. It's almost as if they wanted to fail in this regard; maybe engineering victimhood is easier to rally people than actual results.
The last sentence that I just wrote was rather harsh and I retract it. 미안. |
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