No, I didn’t watch Saturday night’s episode of SBS’s “I Want To Know.” Didn’t want to. Foxnet over at Sound of a Dog Eating Grass did watch the program, however, and for those interested, check out his good post on it. I also got stuck translating a piece on it today for Ye’ Olde Chosun, which you should feel perfectly free to read.
Like I said, I didn’t watch it, so I’m not really in a position to issue criticism. I read a piece in the Dong-A before the show that dealt with some of the issues the episode was supposed to cover. Hard to argue with most of the criticisms lodged. Yes, there are a large number of unqualified English teachers in Korea (both foreign and local, BTW). Yes, some engage in illegal activities like drug use. Yes, some hit on their students (hardly a ‘foreigner’ phenomenon, albeit). And yes, and perhaps most importantly, there is an unhealthy overemphasis on English education in Korea and a completely unjustified racism in which just about any white guy with a pulse can get an English teaching job in Korea. The English education system is broken, and this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
Unfortunately, judging from the accounts that came out after the show, it would seem that the show handled what could have been a good topic in such a shoddy and inflammatory manner that one might wonder whether the object wasn’t to correct a broken and harmful system, but rather to get viewer ratings (12.5 percent, exceptionally high for a nighttime current events program, according to the Kukmin Ilbo) through flaming racial grievances and playing on Korean male insecurities. That just leads to other problems: both the Chosun Ilbo and Kukmin Ilbo pieces warned of inflammatory Internet posts following the program calling for attacks on resident foreigners in Korea. Like the same threats that were issued after English Spectrum-Gate, this is probably all bullshit and nothing to worry about, but it doesn’t exactly help matters, especially if the U.S. Embassy later issues a warning (like they did last time) and a foreign media outlet runs a story making Korea look like a nation of chauvinistic bigots, which wouldn’t be fair, either.
For a productive look at some of the issues involving the English teaching profession in Korea, Blinger has some commentary and decent links you’d be advised to check out.
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