Scribblings of the Metropolitician

A Voice of Rationality

CORRECTION: An astute reader pointed out an error in this post, which is pertinent to what I'm saying and should be noted:

"김 교수는 자신의 논문에서 밝힌 광우병의 위험성을 적극 알리지 않았다는 이유로 '분뇨 테러'까지 당한 것으로 전해졌다. 광우병 논란 사태가 불거진 후 몇몇 사람들이 집에 찾아와 욕설을 하며 동물 분뇨를 뿌렸다는 것이다. "

which describe that the shit terror occured prior to him making the statement revealing the truth, not after the fact. The actual reason for the shit attack was because he did not actively spread the word of danger to the public as 'described' in his research paper, not because he turned around to say 'no thats not what it says.'

Duly noted, although I still don't think it says much for the rationality of the protesters in attacking an innocent researcher, it is an important point. I just skimmed through the article and trusted the summarized translation of others, instead of fact- and error-checking myself. I stand corrected. Thanks, Greg.

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I love being right. I really do.

No, I'm not a scientist, as certain irrational people point out -- I love when people point out the obvious -- but I am a reasonable, educated person who has the ability to discern substance from, ahem, bullshit. (Yes, I am trying to be "punny.")

So -- as I've been saying from the beginning, when I have been taking people to task for 1) not really knowing what the actual source was for the "Korean genetic predisposition to mad cow disease" argument, and 2) for misinterpreting what even the apparent meaning of that statistic is -- the media and the general populace has been freaking out over nothing. Let me repeat:

It has not been established that American beef is any more unsafe than any other country's beef.

And so says the author of the scientific paper being (mis)used by PD 수첩, crazed netizens, petrified students, and anti-American FTA activists (who must be complimented for an amazing PR coup, since this was, admittedly, a master stroke of political theater and manipulation):

국내 광우병 사태를 촉발한 ‘한국인 광우병 취약’ 논문의 저자인 김용선 한림대 의대 교수는 자신의 논문이 일부 언론에 의해 과장 보도됐고 정치적으로 악용됐다고 주변 인사들에게 말한 것으로 확인됐다.

김 교수는 4일 한림대 의대 학장 자격으로 핀란드의 헬싱키 의대 등과의 업무 협의를 위해 윤대원 한림대 이사장 등과 함께 핀란드로 출국했다.

6일 헬싱키 시내 호텔에서 만난 윤 이사장은 기자에게 “김 교수의 논문은 일부 미디어에 의해 부풀려졌고 이를 다시 정치권이 마녀사냥 식으로 악용하고 있다”고 말했다.

I put it in Korean so it's clear to the several commenters who seem to take my critique of the poor critical thinking skills of the media and political groups as proof of my arrogance (guilty as charged, since I consider the rantings and ravings of stupid people, umm, stupid, and I don't consider myself stupid), or proof of me, once again, "hating" Korea. (You can read the English-language breakdown of the article quoted above at the Marmot's Hole.)

Well, it's not surprising, since the author of the study has had his house attacked by shit-throwing idiots. And I don't mean that in the rhetorical sense -- I mean that people have actually found his house and thrown shit at it. If even the author of the study in question gets shit on, is it surprising that anyone with lesser authority (ohhh -- I'm not a scientist!) would get the same treatment? Because we all need to be scientists or other specialists to make critical judgments of obviously faulty logic or specious claims, right?

We should be a clear expert or authority to make any claims? Kim Yong-seon has that authority! "He said Koreans are 94% more likely to...umm...I don't really understand it, but...anyway! He said it! See!"

But then that very authority turns around and says, "No. That's not what it says. You're wrong."

So people start throwing shit at his house, and he's afraid to even come back to Korea from his research trip. The man's nearly in hiding. And what did he do to deserve this? Umm, absolutely nothing. Lovely.

What is more obvious is that PD 수첩's research is shoddy and unprofessional -- I've said it before. And I'm right again: obviously, they never even contacted the professor to discuss the meaning of his paper. Otherwise, they wouldn't have made it the center of their claims, linking it with other specious claims.

The point is -- to those of you getting on my case for pointing out that the statistic looked fishy and taken completely out of context -- you need to ask yourself why it was so obvious to someone like ME that the "94% genetic predisposition" claim looked very suspicious, and NOT to someone like YOU. What separate us? Nationality? Genetics? What neighborhood in Seoul I lived in? Or perhaps my school names?

It's critical thinking skills, people. Link that with a little basic understanding of logical and statistical fallacies, a rudimentary understanding of the science we all should have learned in high school, as well as not being beholden to a slavish belief in "authority," or the petty maneuverings of a self-interested few of what is clearly a highly-politicized issue -- and you get the ability to not be driven into irrational hysteria over a minor trade dispute.

Does this make me arrogant? If so, I guess I'm arrogant, then.

Does pointing this out make me an asshole? If so, I guess I gotta be an asshole, then.

Does this make me anti-Korean? Again, I'm just pointing out what I consider to be the overreactions of the irrational. By some people's standards, that makes me "anti-Korean," I guess. Hmm.

But then again, by "some people's standards," this innocent professor who did nothing but write a paper on an issue that people not only didn't properly understand, but actively misused for political gain, and when he simply clarified the actual meaning of the research being misused by intellectual brownshirts (and I use the term "intellectual" hesitantly), a completely innocent academic who literally has been dragged into a political shitstorm now has cow dung being thrown at his house and fears for his physical safety.

I guess that makes me, him, and anyone else who raises a voice outside of the mass-mind of the angry crowd, "anti-Korean," right? But to the mob, what does the truth -- nay, even mere rationality -- matter? "You're either with us or against us." Or, as the great Captain Jean-Luc Picard once ominously warned while under the assimilative mind control of cybernetic alien nanoprobes, "You WILL become one with the Borg."

"대~한민국!"

Mad About Mad Cow Disease in Korea

I'm going to say this in unequivocal terms, so this can draw the attention of as many people as possible: anyone who believes the scare about getting "mad cow disease" from eating American beef is stupid. [See English link to Chosun.com editorial here, and Korean link here]

Now, that being said, let me also say that it's not quite their fault, since the amount of irresponsible reporting on the part of the media (PD 수첩), the lack of media literacy on the Korean public in general, the lack of general critical thinking skills that go with a tendency to believe anything on television or printed in a newspaper, combined with the tendency to not go against what the crowd, one's 선배, teacher, or group of friends think -- these all combine to make it pretty easy to spread a bunch of bullshit that people will tend to believe, the facts be damned.

The same thing happened in 2002, with the protests about the two middle school girls killed by an armored vehicle. Falsehoods presented as facts by an irresponsible Korean news media included:

1) the US Army refusing to offer compensation (from the beginning, the US military claimed responsibility and paid compensation according to the SOFA agreement and at a level decided according to Korean law -- the SOFA merely specified the percentage to be paid by the US), the members of the

2) the soldiers involved not only showed no remorse but laughed and joked at the crime scene and afterwards (no evidence for this was offered, but was widely reported from hearsay, even as the images from the service held by soldiers in 21D were widely available, which was attended by top brass, and the soldiers donated $22,000 of their own money to the families that was collected the very next day after the incident) -- none of this was reported

3) the US military and US government refused to apologize for the incident (in fact, written apologies from the US military commander to the President of the United States were reprinted and linked, in both Korean and English, on the US Embassy web site after having been sent to the appropriate parties)

4) the use of dubious "experts" who never visited the scene nor had access to the bodies, who said that the two girls were clearly "murdered" on purpose as the tank had rolled back and forth over their bodies several times (in fact, the tank had rolled over them, and backed up once they did, which is more in line with common sense than a "murder" case, which always needs a motive -- even the Korean imagination's most evil of evil American GI's isn't going to just run over two middle school girls for fun)

In the end, the backdrop for this incident was an already-extant, extreme amount of anti-American sentiment, which was cleverly used by radical activists to excite the Korean masses. Even I, as one who never hesitates to criticize American government or society, was taken in by it; but upon further review and after finding out that half the story I was being told was simply not true, by any stretch of interpretation or the imagination, I simply dismissed the story for what it was: effective baiting of a gullible Korean public more than willing, at the time, to express its anti-American sentiment. The fact that most of what the public was mad about was either patently untrue or an extreme distortion of the facts wasn't even an "inconvenient truth." In fact, at the time, one didn't dare have another point of view.

Here we go again. It's the same thing, enabled by similar dubious claims -- according to PD 수첩, Koreans are 94% more disposed to developing a disease to which no humans have demonstrated any resistance, and is a disease that scientists are not even fully clear as to how it works?

This is about as believable as the idiotic doctors who say that an elderly man has died because a fan was left on, letting the assumption bar any other investigation into the logical conclusion that it was age-induced heart failure, a sudden stroke, or some other thing that generally kills people who are 79 years old. This is simply stupid. I can shoot down any idiotic explanations for fan death than any quack doctor simply because I've had an education that has taught me basic logical and critical thinking skills, and I have a decent understanding of what is scientifically sound, and what is mere uninformed idiocy. I've already talked about it before, and I'll challenge any idiot who still claims "fan death" is a fact.

Anyone who believes in said myth is, in fact, stupid and is in need of correction, either in terms of basic logic (countless people sleep in front of fans in closed spaces and do not, in fact, die) or basic science education (the oxygen content of air does not, in fact, change if the air happens to be moving, and no, your body temperature cannot fall low enough to kill you because your body sweats to allow excess heat to be taken away by evaporation, which it doesn't do when you are no longer hot, and there is nothing about moving air in itself that actively reduces temperature, anyway-- the temperature of the air might your body to lose heat by induction, which would kill you if you were exposed at 20 degrees Fahrenheit, but not the 90-degree heat that usually causes people to use a fan in the first place. In fact, if one is worried about dying, one SHOULD use a fan to help your body keep body temperature DOWN by passing air over all the sweat causing one's kids to stick to the sheets.

One can't call me an "elitist" for having had access to the same basic science information that every Korean kid is exposed to. I took Basic Chemistry (not advanced) and got a B, and didn't do any better in Physics. I nearly failed Geometry and never got to Calculus in high school. I don't do numbers, and am pretty much a dunce in that respect. But I learned enough about how the world works to distinguish science fact from the science fiction of things to come, as well as from myth, magic, and other forms of apparent mystery. The fact that many Koreans cannot is not my fault, and I haven't received any additional messages about the world -- Koreans generally have been exposed to more math and science than I ever had, and I went to pretty good schools in the US.

Yet, many people here -- even the highly educated -- still believe in "fan death," that blood types are linked to personality traits (a myth ironically started by a racist Japanese anthropologist trying to prove the superiority of mainland Japanese over the "inferior" Ainu -- since I am always one to try and be specific about claims rather than offer ambiguous references, that would Takeji Furukawa's series of papers called "The Study of Temperament Through Blood Type"), that kimchi can prevent SARS, or even the old doozy that Koreans are "racially pure", which defies Korea's own historical logic as should be dictated by all the nations and tribes that ran back and forth across the peninsula.

Basically, a lot of Koreans believe in a lot of stupid bullshit spread by irresponsible authorities, and this is enabled by having been trained to unequivocally believe in what one is told. That is a pretty defensible claim, but I'll spare you the thousands of concrete complaints about the problems of the Korean education system, authoritarian socialization, or the lingering effects of having lived under direct colonial occupation, neo-colonial administration, or direct dictatorship, none of which are very conducive to encouraging liberal pedagogy.

Another claim that is more of an opinionated observation is that many Koreans seem to have trouble discerning between logic and emotion when it comes to issues related to the nation. I've been in so many arguments in which a Korean is forced to admit that my observation is correct but they simply don't like the fact that a foreigner has noticed it or is making the comment, and I often squash the argument by simply pointing that out; alternatively, I simply make an equally harsh criticism of the United States, and the person sees I do not "hate" Korea, but am just a critical thinker. But I rarely talk about any issue with a Korean unless I have specific examples, statistics, and references -- there is no benefit of the doubt given to a reasonable explication of reasonable claims when it comes to Korea. One has to have serious ammunition when it comes to pointing out even the painfully obvious in Korea, especially when people are on about something.

Whether it's Ohno (why vilify the athlete simply doing what athletes do, which is try to win, as opposed to the referee?), the US military's dumping of harmful chemicals into the Han River (which is bad, but is a tiny fraction of what Korean companies continue to dump into the river, as highlighted in far less publicized media stories), two middle school girls killed in a vehicular accident (but lack of seatbelts or respect for pedestrians means that Korea is the most dangerous place in the world in terms of traffic deaths, and many of the factors that led to the girls' deaths, like the lack of a sidewalk or a divider on a highway regularly traveled by pedestrians, or the fact they were listening to an MP3 player while walking, remain unaddressed) -- people are not only not thinking critically or looking very deeply, there's another factor here, which is the big, fat, pink-and-blue striped elephant in the room:

Anti-American sentiment runs at such a fever pitch here that people are willing to believe any bad news about anything having to do with the United States, to the point of believing flimsy "scientific" claims and not dealing with the fact that American beef has not been proven to be much less safe than any other country's beef, not to mention Korea's own problems with E. coli or the recent Cheil Jedang food poisoning scandal.

It boils down to the KORUS FTA and whether or not one wants cheap American beef flooding the markets here. That issue, being dealt with directly, would be a fair one. Don't want to open the markets? Want to protect the domestic beef industry? Think America's FTA is negative for Korea? Fine. That's legitimate. I don't happen to agree, but I understand the arguments on the other side.

But this fear-mongering and nationalism-baiting isn't a healthy mode for Korean society, and it's even more frightening to see that teachers (well, members of the Korean Teachers' Union, which is little more than a propaganda machine for far left interests) here are telling their students that eating American beef is tantamount to a death sentence. Last week, half of my school, at the urging of certain teachers, told kids to attend the rally "if they wanted to fight for their life" and other such nonsense. To their credit, the principal and most of the teachers forbade students from leaving the grounds, and several stood guard at the gates to make sure no kids were sneaking out.

I myself forbade a student from skipping class to go, but held a discussion about why the claims were ridiculous, and why I felt that an anti-FTA rally was no place for a high school girl. Yes, the candlelight vigil was peaceful, but that was a first when it came to anti-FTA or anti-US beef rallies, and I didn't think that human feces-throwing, epithet yelling, riot police attacking protesters would provide any "education experience" for impressionable 10th-graders. It's sad to think that Korean teachers, knowing how intellectually vulnerable Korean students are, would urge them to go. It's not surprising, mind you -- just sad.

I actually had students thinking that using menstrual pads would lead to mad cow disease (I'll have to get back to you on that one, since the logic was such a stretch that the strings of "evidence" has broken down in my mind), or who actually made the mental jump to a sincere belief that they would immediately die upon eating US beef. This isn't responsible "teaching" if your students are literally scared to death -- I got a text message urging me not to go to 7/11, TGI Friday, and Lotte Mart because I would get mad cow disease, since they use American beef.

None of this is commensurate with any actual dangers posed by American beef, although it might be in relation to the danger of eating ANY kind of beef, but that's a different story, and I've already decided why I can't be a vegetarian, even though I know I should:

I like beef. "It's what's for dinner."

Korean Foreign Language High Schools -- Heaven for Korean Students?

Oh, come on.

This is in response to the superficial puff piece written by the New York Times on the Korean school system. While the Times generally practices great journalism, the depth of inquiry in this piece was woefully inadequate, especially considering what a contested and troubled topic the education system in Korea is -- well, if you know very much about Korea, that is. (HT to the Marmot's Hole for posting on this one first!)

I taught at Daewon for a year-and-a-half before quitting in the middle of my contract (having an F-4 helps with that) because of me finally being faced with two roads -- participating in evil, or maintaining my sense of ethics. Beyond that, I can't elaborate. I've already waxed about it at my blog here and here.

Their rival institution, Waedae's boarding school in Yongin, recruited me once they learned I was quitting. I worked there for a year before choosing not to renew my contract after the Ministry of Education made it illegal for a foreigner to teach a non-language-based subject based pretty much entirely on a hack-attack job done on my school by a reporter from the Kyunghyang Shinmun because I was teaching an AP US History class taught during normal school hours. A disgrace to the nation! That made the morning radio news nationwide. Lovely.

I now teach at Ewha Girls Foreign Language High School, which is small and very much not a pressure cooker. I teach American History to about 20 girls, not 120 test terminators, which makes my life markedly easy. I'd never teach in a Daewon or Yongin again, since the kids' life is a living hell.

The reason I think the NYT article is superficial and lame is because it's just a recycling of the PR stats. The problem with these schools is that they apply the best aspects of the Korean system (test assassination) to the requirements of getting INTO American colleges (SAT, SAT II subject tests, and now the AP's which have become de facto required). The kids do remarkably well on these tests. But when they get to the American schools, they are woefully ill-prepared. But the schools don't have a vested interest in caring about that -- they just want their kids to get INTO famous schools, and it doesn't matter how they DO at them.

Daewon is one of the few schools that actually has the clout and money to attract sparkly foreigners and lets them teach a few "discussion-based" classes, which are, though, linked to an AP test of some kind. Still, though, most of the FLHS system in Korea is basically tests, tests, tests. One of the struggles in the FLHS has always been to actually teach them something substantial, rather than for the tests.

Now, I am in contact via chat and Facebook with many of my former Daewon students, whom I first met 3 years ago. They agree that their first year in American college was like getting hit with a Mack truck; I had always told them that it would -- "it's true for native speakers attending their own American colleges, so it'll be triple-true for you." They always kinda rolled their eyes. Now, they get it.

Anyway, I did what I could to prepare them, and it was always a struggle, fighting against the stream. Other teachers fought the same battle, and usually got attacked by the Korean teachers for it. Most of the foreign teachers at these schools quit after a year. When I was in Daewon and Yongin, I was not the first teacher at either school to quit before the year ended. Turnover rate is nearly 100% per year for foreign teachers. And Daewon paid an hourly rate of $100 per hour, average part-time teaching load 12-15 hours per week. How bad must it have been for people to quit, or not renew their contracts? Don't just do the math -- try to imagine the extreme suck of one's life to consider quitting a job that paid sometimes as much as $6,000 per month for (technically) half-time work.

Won't find that in the NYT article.

Nor this pic of my Daewon kids taking the chance to do what they have so little time to do, which is sleeeeeeeeep.

Basically, your life sucks at these schools for 3 years, but the kids and parents swallow their pride and ire, since it is the fast-track to America's best schools. Period. That's the exchange. But it absolutely brings out the worst of the Korean school system in a soul-crushing nightmare of pain that many students realize only gets them to the door of the institution they wanted, but has woefully under-prepared them to make it through.

I can't believe the Times was comparing the SAT scores of Exeter and Daewon, playing into the "Asian powerhouse" myth. Scores aside, a school like Exeter prepares you to think, gives you a spectacular education. Because you're not spending all of your time sitting in a chair.

And if the Times reporter actually thinks THAT school approves of rock bands (or the cheerleading squad that was summarily crushed by the principal when I was there) or anything non-academic that isn't a 1-hour-per-week weekly meeting so the kids can put it down on their college apps as filler without it technically being a lie, I've got a bridge on the Han River to sell him.

And now, more grist for Daewon's PR and human test factory mill, since the NYT writer didn't think to insert nary a dollop of critical social context into the sweet and savory soufflé he was baking. Intentional or not, this piece on Daewon couldn't have been written better by a well-paid PR firm.

My Sentiments Exactly

Just a response to a really interesting and honest post from The Joshing Gnome, whom I introduce for the first time here. Read it, then read my comment, which I reprint in post form here, since even my comments tend to be post-length. Yeah, I know. I know.

They're definitely acting out. In the classic sense. I used to work with kids like that at the alternative school, where they turn around suprisingly fast, relatively. Basically, they just have to be shown, for the first time, a responsible envrionment with adults in which the adults are not constantly scolding them and telling them they "can't" or "you're nothing" or some other form of constant negative.

You hear it enough, well, it becomes true. And in my experience at the school, a lot of these girls are sexually abused, either by an older male relative or a stepdad. Or they simply go in this extreme direction as a way of rebelling -- and given the ease in which you can mix burgeoning sexual curiosity with making a buck, say on the internet, well...

You see how this goes. In an a way, I see it as Korean society being so rigid in terms of the lives of kids, it's easier to rebel in prescribed ways. Curse, litter, date. Voila! Now, you're a "bad kid" beyond hope! Now, you can look forward to being summarily kciked out of your school (as several of my kids had been, in middle school) and effectively ostracized and stigmatized by your elders. Turn your increased anger into increased efforts to lash out at this process. Rinse and repeat.

Basically, our alternative school (which uses media to give kids something useful and later, marketable, to focus on and learn) had real counselors, with real backgrounds in social work (not homeroom teachers with a certificate) being extremely patient with the kids, until they realized that the adults were not going to yell at them and call them names, let alone hit them or worse. Some kids turn around; some don't.

One girl with whom I recently worked was a girl sorta like that. She chewed gum, thought she had sass, was loud, and cursed too much. And that was IN class. I could easily see her with her friends on the subway, egging each other on.

But she took a love for photography for some reason, and she had an eye. Who knew? Well, that's the point of the alternative school. For one kid, it might be photo; another video; another, tweaking pics in Photoshop; for another, 3-D animation.

She was taking really bizarrely wonderful pics with her digital camera, and she was starting to get really possessive about using MY camera. Although handing this bouncy and too-carefree kid my camera and lens made me uncomfortable at first, she did treat the camera far differently than anything else, especially anyone else's. She was ginger with it, and took time to take her bizarro-angle pictures with my wider lens.

She wasn't from a poor family, but from an average family that simply had been having trouble handling her. They bought her a camera, the same DSLR model I had, which I receommended she get now used, instead of the sparkly, newer-version of the same. She took too it, and is a photo nut last I checked (haven't taught this semester).

These kids can be helped far more easily than say, kids who are stuck in a subculture of drugs, gangs, guns, and other kinds of structural violence you see in the US. These kids just need to be provided an alternative path, instead of the "conform or die" path offered them in Korea. Unfortunately, the SSRO.net school I worked at serves about 10-15 kids at a time. That's all they can handle, really.

I'm glad you were able to see things from a broader perspective than the "punk kids! get off my lawwwwn!" many tend to see them from. And maybe someday, some of ya'll would like to volunteer at a school like SSRO.net? Guarantee it'll be rewarding, albeit sometimes frustrating. Caveat: the more Korean you know, the better. Not for the adults, but for the kids, who generally have no English, given that most of them aren't exactly the Korean wunderkind you hear about in the NYT. Anyway, whatever -- I'm sure that the help would be appreciated, especially from foreigners...expensive foreigners.

Although it would be likely not actually resulting in the kid learning any English on a real permanent level, anyone teaching English there would be vastly appreciated. It would be a madhouse trying to keep the kids focused, but you'd have fun and actually get to know the kinda kids Joe talked about in the subway. And you wouldn't be speaking all that much English, anyway. It'd be just sort of another "teaser" for the one kid who might latch onto it, or have the experience with a foreigner spark another mental connection or jumpstart an interest. Media activities IN English would also be fun...

A Sad Day Has Come

This is the last time I will post here. My time as the "Metropolitician" is up.

I've realized a lot of things over the last week or so, since falling for a certain young lady of a more conservative persuasion, who has quite literally rocked my world. I realize that a lot of the liberal ideas I had formerly and formally adhered to were largely misconstrued notions I had held, distortions of ideological ramifications that simply had no precedence in either established fact, dilapidated fiction, or even (and not either) the demonstrated dialectics of most people's dystopic desires.

In short, a new kind of love has made me into a harder, more turgid man.

No longer will I carry the torch for a a deluded liberalism, nor be the voice for lefty illiberality. What I truly hanker for is a haughty helping of a hunk of cheese that isn't defined in terms of a mere neo-Freudian kitsch, but the kind of cheese one can count on, like money in the bank; indeed, one needs sustenance so solid and reliable one can literally stick it in a pipe and smoke it.

So I can no longer continue to write here, after having fallen for someone like the one who has learned to call me "oppa." Such is an experience I never thought I could have had, either as a black man, or a Star Trek fan, and her highly-developed sense of what I have previously called here mere "fetishized femininity" has caused in me an emotional rise that is quite epic in its tense and torpedo-like tautology. Indeed, they didn't call Moby a "Dick" for nothing, as they say. Unlike the proverbial Ahab, my little lady has actually caught her whale.

When wondering why I have decided to forgo any further forays into formalism and endorse not Barack "Aladdin" Obama, but rather John McCain, the answer becomes perfectly obvious, does it not?

When you ask yourselves these questions, as you struggle for the answers, yet still can't bring yourself to face the truth, realize that Tom Cruise once said, quite poignantly, that the "truth could not be handled" and that in a similar situation, Al Pacino pointed a finger and said that the entire Supreme Court was indeed, very much "out of order."

In the same way, I was once out of love, and was so lost without her, but believe you me -- I now realize that it's hip to be square. Or did not Huey Lewis not give you that news?

So, it is with heavy hands that I make my last entry here, since the Metropolitician that was me has completely and totally ceased to be he.

For Pak Geun-hye's youngest daughter knows how to hit me where it counts, and to not just do that to me once, but likes to hit me, baby one more time, all the time, if you catch my meaning, number one Negaroni! See, I don't shrink away from saying, loudly and proudly, what needs to be said. And if you didn't get it from the passage above, you need a double dose of dis doubletalk. April mothafuckin' fool's, bitches!

Word to your mother, yo!

FOREIGNERS - DON'T COME TO KOREA! CHOOSE JAPAN OR CHINA!

I give up. You know what we should do, if we want to use the "politics of shame" to show just how stupid these requirements are? A slight affectation of a unified movement to discourage new teachers from coming to Korea might be an interesting proposition.

And in saving some newbies some trouble, and actually filling the Google rankings with advice to avoid Korea, that might result in some interesting reactions from the Korean side of things. Here's my message, which is somewhat affected, but still sincere:

Let me just say right now that the only reason I'm staying in Korea is because I have an F-4 and am not subject to these requirements. But I am ever required to give drug and HIV tests in order to work, or rip out my single original copy of my diploma sitting in a frame in my mother's home in Ohio, it will be time for me to leave this country.

I'm not going to pop a vein and allow my personal privacy to be violated, nor allow some administrative bureaucrat to slide my pristine copy of my diploma around some copy machine when a transcript with a raised seal will do.

If that transcript is good enough to get a job with the CIA, it's good enough for the fucking Korean Ministry of Education.

I've got shit I need to do here, and shit I enjoy doing here. I'm grandfathered in. I've put too much energy into this country, society, and language to quit now. That's why I'm staying. That's the only reason.

But my patience with this country has worn pretty thin, and I'm having trouble right now not going over to the "dark side" and starting to hate this place. I might have to start looking for ruby crystals for my lightsaber soon. I'm struggling with another "dark time", just as I did in early 2003, when I would hear the word "nigger" more times in a week than I had in all the time I had spent in Korea to that point (more than 3 years, actually).

Things are changing, people, and it's for the worst.

My advice for newbies interested in teaching English as a means of living in Asia, I am sad to suggest:

DON'T COME TO KOREA. GO TO JAPAN OR CHINA.

Korea and Koreans, no matter what is said, doesn't really want foreigners here. We are treated like criminals by the law, and in the law. The media represents us as nothing more than drug fiends, AIDS carriers, and child molesters.

If you don't want to be treated as such by the law, required to submit a criminal background check, submit to drug and HIV tests, and have to submit your original diploma just to teach in some unprofessionally-run institute or elementary school in which whatever skills and ability you have won't be respected anyway...

DO NOT COME TO SOUTH KOREA TO LIVE AND TEACH.

Japan is much more urbane and sophisticated, more global and developed, and much more able to be a place where you can enjoy your life as a foreigner.

I'm sorry to have to say this, but I've come to the conclusion that much of my ability to enjoy my life here is simply because I have an F-4, which essentially allows me to be treated somewhat like a human being here, and allows me to survive here.

If I had to have an E-2 visa, I would be giving up my rights to privacy, personal dignity, and self-respect. And I can't, in good conscience, continue to lie about a culture that I do care about, because it has become outrageously racist and xenophobic to the point that basic gestures of respect are ignored in regards to foreigners here.

I've lived here since before it was comfortable to live here (from 1994-1996) and from 2002 to the present. I've studied Korean and defended the culture and its weak points to no end, no matter how much I've offered criticism on this blog.

But I'm going to stop that now.

If you have to come to Korea on an E-2 or C-7 visa, given the ludicrous requirements and the extreme power any organization you work with will have over you, which speaks to the basic problem of a lack of professionalism and even the possibility of being exploited by your employer even BEFORE these regulations went into effect – I would warn you:

STAY AWAY FROM KOREA.

GO TO JAPAN, since you will enjoy yourself more, and not be subject to the increased level of unprofessionalism and exploitation that will be one of many side effects of this visa change.

Or, GO TO CHINA, which has a much richer cultural heritage and history that is obvious everywhere you go, and learning the language will benefit you more than Korean, anyway.

IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER IN THIS RACE, and all other things are equal, why would you choose Korea? In all honesty, right now, I can't give this country my endorsement for foreigners to come live here as teachers, unless you have "Korean blood", which Korea will recognize as your ticket to being treated like a human being.

If you have some other specific skill that will allow you to exist here on a non-teaching visa, perhaps you will also be able to enjoy life.

But if you are a nice kid who just wants to spend some time in Asia after college, or are the kind of person who is truly interested in learning about other cultures, save yourself the humiliation of jumping through these hoops only to be treated to broken contract terms, stigmatization of having to prove that you are NOT a needle-sharing, HIV+, child molester – spare yourself the indignity and frustration.

Korea isn't a country for "nice people" to just come and have an experience in anymore, but a place where only the thickest-skinned survive, those very, very desperate to teach here, or have a clear and specific reason to be here.

If you're just a nice kid from Saskatchewan or Iowa, go to Japan and China. You're much more likely to not end up bitter and cynical, like me.

Seriously.

Agree with those sentiments? Then in your own words, on your own blog, tell the would-be English teachers of the world to "CHOOSE JAPAN!"

What do you have to lose? You get to use the other side of that double-edged sword of Korean national pride to perhaps show just how stupid these regulations are, while doing something concrete to help raise your billable hours in the long run.

Wouldn't that be a hoot? The expat blogosphere trying to put a dent in the supply of English teachers? Korea doesn't seem to want us? Let's help out! Do your part and advocate "GO JAPAN!" today!

Korea – Worst Country for Foreign Teachers?

HT to Gusts of Popular Feeling for this.

You hear about the new visa regulations to be a teacher in Korea?

YOU have to provide a criminal background check, pass a blood test for drugs, HIV, and likely whatever else they think we all have, and have to leave the country in order to extend your E-2 visa.

This is a stroke of pure genius!

Treat all foreign teachers like criminals, and force them to produce these documents every time they apply for or even RENEW a visa.

So, now the hagwons and schools will be more apt to hire the many more foreigners working here illegally on tourist visas, while the number of the vast majority of completely non-child molester, non-drug runner foreigners willing to put up with an extended life of being treated like a child-molesting, AIDS-ridden, drug abusing criminal will surely decrease.

I'm glad I have an F-4 Kyopo visa. Seriously, since having "Korean blood" means I am most certainly NOT a child-molesting, AIDS-ridden, drug abusing criminal. Glad we got that straight.

Instead of doing something that would actually help FIX the problem, such as making a two-tiered system that would offer something like the 2-year, open F-4 visa to foreigners who have worked for say, 3 years or more WITHOUT incidents resembling the wild, drug needle-filled orgies Koreans seem to imagine all foreigners have with the little boys and girls whom we teach by dint of our faked degrees – which would reward the majority of good people here and create a more competitive job market by separating the ability to stay in Korea from one's workplace, we're just going to shrink the supply of good ones and increase incentive to shirk the system.

And with all the inconvenience, additional expense, and ill will created by such a policy, why would anyone come teach English in Korea?

Had I not an F-4 and a very specific set of reasons to stick it out here, I'd leave Korea, too. I hate to agree with some readers here who ask that question: "Why stay in Korea?" but that's the question people are going to ask.

And instead of rewarding those who'd like to stay long term because they've developed some reason to stay, you're going to be penalizing them.

Just on a practical level alone, if I had to leave the country and come up with a criminal background check, submit to extensive blood tests, and have to travel back to all the places I have lived in the US in order to get a complete criminal background check, since there's no central database on a federal level for records kept on state levels, I'd have to go to Ohio, Rhode Island, and California to do it. Or at least do some seriously irritating paperwork by mail and hope that all the stupid, clogged bureaucracy back in my OWN country gets this back to me in at least 6-8 weeks. And is all this paperwork going to come in during the time I have for vacation?

Who has potentially the thousands of dollars in time and money that may be necessary to spend in order to simply extend a visa?

Christ.

And for what? Inflated, racist media reports of incidents that largely are unfounded, or didn't even happen?

And let's not forget that the real problem isn't criminals coming to Korea to teach English, but rather the disreputable places that set the bar of lowest-common denominator for the quality of people hired. As in any human resources issue, getting qualified people isn't a matter of checking whether they are HIV carriers or child molesters, but improving the size and quality of the pool, while keeping the conditions of work and pay as fair and pleasant as possible.

Putting pressure on disreputable schools and hagwons to stop screwing over its foreign teachers, to professionalize their hiring practices, curriculums, and business practices, and to actively eliminate the sheister language schools and institutes that spoil the water for everyone – that or any one of these things would be far more useful in the long run.

Then, you'll have more, better people applying for the ever-increasing number of English teaching positions that this English-crazed society is creating, instead of making the pool smaller.

Of course, this is the thinking of Korean bureaucrats who just read Korean newspapers and have discussions with only Koreans as to just how to deal with FOREIGNERS. I'm sure no foreign English teachers were consulted in planning this.

And for those of you wondering whether you should go to Korea or Japan to teach...Korea or Japan...Korea or Japan...

Psst! Japan!

Well, unless you have "Korean blood." Like me. Then you're OK.

And the funny thing is that a lot of Korean folks will hear complaining like this and think, "You don't like it, go back home!"

Don't worry. People will. Or at least to Japan to work, or for their tri-monthly visa run.

"대~한민국!"

Not Just Kimpo Foreign Language High School!

Now that my the few remaining students I've taught at Daewon Foreign Language High School are getting safely into the end of the American college admissions cycle, and most of them are actually in college, I'll just say, for the sake of the public record and in the interest of those in society who want fairness in admissions testing (한국어), the following:

When I was forced (I didn't want to participate, but all foreign teachers in the international program were required to help in the admissions process) to read essays that were part of the admissions test to get into the international program within the school, I had to sit down, with another reader, in a room with a stack of essays and give them a numeric rating.

The funny thing is that we were given a special rule, which I inquired about but was just told to follow, and that it was just "the rule": I was to give the normal numeric rating, but in cases where we gave a perfect rating, the essay had to handed over to a Korean counselor who would collect just those exams and take them away.

It struck me as very strange, since the examinations were done without names on the essays, and such admissions processes are very, very sensitive. When I had to participate in the making of a similar admissions exam at the Hanguk Academy of Foreign Studies (HAFS) at Yongin after quitting my job in the middle of my contract at Daewon, the teachers making the exam had to go to a rented house in the country, surrender their cellphones, the Internet was disconnected, and we not allowed to leave until the exam began the next morning.

It's THAT serious.

And other schools are supposed to follow these practices very closely so that incidents just like the one at Kimpo (a teacher with knowledge of the questions giving them out to students before the exam) can't happen.

But at the Daewon entrance examination, we had any perfect score essays being collected separately and given to a Korean counselor, who physically took them out of the room, separate from the other essays in the pile.

Although I won't speculate beyond that, I wonder if THAT was standard procedure.

And since I am limited by potential problems with libel law, let me just pose the rhetorical question of why I would quit, during the middle of my second year, a school that was paying me 105,000 won an hour to teach a subject that I love (American History) 15 hours per week (do the math, people) to students whom I cared for very deeply, and were some of the best pupils I had ever had the honor to teach?

I wonder what that reason could have been? It certainly wasn't for the lack of money, or for a dislike of the teaching. And I quit that job and went to work for their rival school (HAFS) that was far outside of Seoul (3.5-hour commute, 3 days a week). I didn't want to go to the rival school, of all places, but how many places are employing American History teachers in Korea?

All that trouble...must have been some good reasons, ya think?

Hmmmmmmmmmm...

If any special prosecutor wants to contact me, I'm game. I've got a LOT to say. As do other foreigners who do the bulk of the teaching in the international programs of these FLHS's. Too bad our testimony don't mean jack here.

The Wonder Girls = Kiddie Porn?

Seriously. People are actually wondering why rates of "wonjo kyojae" ("compensated dating" with minors) seem to be on the rise. Oh, I don't know – watching 14 and 15-year-old girls do violent pelvic thrusts to lyrics such as this, as when you get to 7:30 of this video [huge H/T to Popular Gusts]:

Dont cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me
Dont cha, dont cha
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me
Dont cha, dont cha

And I thought Britney Spears was risqué.

Call me old-fashioned, but perhaps it's because I teach girls this age that I find it disgusting to so blatantly make sex objects out of girls the same age. We're talking middle school, people.

But we can go younger if you want – go to MNCast and type in "섹시 댄스" and "꼬마". Took me one try. God knows what you can find out there if you're actually LOOKING for it. If you are easily creeped out, I advise you to skip.

Somehow, I don't find the Wonder Girls as skirting the edge of appropriateness – when you're doing the same dances that you can find in any Deja Vu, for which you'd put a dollar in a g-strong for, I think it reaches a whole new level – especially when the girl is 14 and hasn't even finishing growing her secondary sex characteristics yet.

Over on FMS, I did post on The Wonder Girls before I really knew who they were. I did kind of like their 80's nostalgia marketing and the 80's pop revival style that could work – if they were able to actually sing. But I kind of regret my first post on them, because I had no idea they were so young. Seriously, they looked a lot older in those 80's pics. And after learning more about them – it's kinda gross, to put a fine point on it. After some time, my second post on them was far less charitable.

Come on, JYP – do you really have to recruit so young? And if they can't even sing and dance, umm...what's the point of recruiting so young, again? Unless...?

'Cause they really can't sing to save their lives. And the "dance?" Funny thing is, the thing they do with their shoulders is really, really, popular amongst boys, as are the Wonder Girls themselves. I am seriously starting to think that part of the appeal is the cracking voices of pubescent girls themselves. Perhaps, given what the market is apparently looking for, JYP is smarter than us all.

Hey, the Wonder Girls are at the top of the charts and queens of the pop world right now. Who am I to argue?

Podcast #31 - Academic Fakery and the New Jack Hustle

OK - it's on.

Apparently, some Korean reporters are calling around certain foreign professors now, looking for a story. Even if there is none. Apparently, some official literature listed some foreign professor who had studied at Trinity College and who had also attended the officially academically linked Georgetown as having gotten his Ph.D. from Georgetown instead of the other way around. Not his fault, who cares, right? Not when there's a witch hunt on, and now the media's returning to its old stomping grounds of "look at how bad the foreigners are!"

I myself have been listed as having gone to all kinds of school I haven't, and have been listed as "professor" and "Dr. Michael Hurt" and with a "Ph.D." behind my name, when none of these things are true. One web site for a school I was teaching at had, unbeknownst to me, listed me in the course description (which I don't check) as a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University.

That was news to me.

So I informed them of the error, and even had to remind the department to remind the other department who talks to the guys who update the web site once a week who...

You get the picture.

And on top of that, there was some incentive on the school's part to fudge with profiles, since that leads to more students enrolling in the summer session I was teaching in. But short of that, I think it was actually just a clerical error, and they had gotten me mixed up with someone else. I've also had my undergraduate alma mater listed as my non-existent Ph.D. (I'm a doctoral candidate, but not yet finished with the dissertation), and all kinds of secretaries who don't speak much English have put my name next to the wrong others names countless times.

And that ain't my fault. I correct any error I see, and must be one of the most academically honest fools out there. Yet, it's a shame to see someone like me, who made no mistake of his own and has an Oxford undergraduate degree (meaning, why would this guy feel the need to "pump up" his stats when he already commands respect in his field, not to mention having gone to a power hitter school?), yet the best this idiotic reporter in question can do is come up with some web site that had mislisted his background.

So when Regina called me up, I brought out a friend to do a podcast on the subject and nip this shit in the bud - that reporter works for a major English-language daily here in Korea. I hope he gets to hear this podcast and take a nice big sip of shut-the-fuck-up.

And if anyone wants to question my credentials, feel free to go up my ass with a microscope if you'd like. My shit is clean and fresh as a freshly-talcumed baby's bottom. I've got official transcripts, raised seals, and even pictures of me at graduation in the black gown, bitches.

Look for your story elsewhere.

Listen to the podcast in the menu to the left, or click here.

Running Time: 1:22:25
File Size: 56.6 MB
File Info: 96 kbps (48 kpbs mono) at 44.1 kHz, MPEG-2, layer 3 (MP3)

Show Links:

Where the Hell Am I? (ExpatJane's Blog)
http://expatjane.blogspot.com/