The Labor Ministry announced Monday that it would make those foreigners wishing to come to Korea as laborers under the government’s work permit system take Korean language proficiency exams. Actually, according to Seoul Business Paper, the policy was decided last August, with a one year grace period so the government could design tests and get the necessary infrastructure ready. Prospective laborers will take a simplified test designed specifically for them. It will include speaking, listening and reading comprehension and evaluate whether prospective laborers have the basic language proficiency needed to work in Korea. I’ll assume, however, that the test will not include the vulgarities and racial slurs that 3D laborers are likely to hear on a regular basis.
Something about this disturbs me. I’m all in favor of learning the language. If you live and work here (or anywhere), you should make the effort to learn the language. But why issue a mandatory test? And more to the point, why issue a mandatory test for one segment of the foreigner community (i.e., 3D workers, mostly from China and Southeast, South and Central Asia), but not for others (i.e., English teachers from North America, the U.K., Australia, etc.)? I mean, if the companies in need of the labor require the language skills, wouldn’t they naturally hire workers with the requisite skills? And if the companies don’t require language skills, why make a test of this sort mandatory? Do speakers of Urdu, Kazakh or Thai have a particular duty to learn Korean that American speakers of English do not? Or, for that matter, do Filipino speakers of English have a particular duty to learn Korean that American speakers of English do not? You tell me.
29 Comments
“But why issue a mandatory test?”
Is there any chance the K-gov’t is prepping themselves to lock out folks from a specific country? Having a test that only folks from would “fail” is a great cover.
disrespect to 3D workers is a big BIG issue, that makes me ashamed as a Korean. This is also one reason Korea cant say too much about Japanese treatment to Japanese-Koreans; as they do the same thing to other people. I hope the government and people make efforts to fix it. hope this is test isnt to o bad
So now 3D workers not only need to pay a broker to come to Korea to work in less than desirable conditions they also need to spend a large amount of time learning Korean before they come. Seems to me the government is a little short sighted here. This will fail as soon as the plant(ation) owners complain about not having enough labor.
I read some more articles in Korean about this. I am at least glad to see that they are not testing everyday living Korean, but rather on Korean in work (for safety, efficiency etc. as they say). A worker that doesnt know any Korean should be able to pass after studying a few months, they say.
:/ well, I dont know…
This is a joke. The ministry has, for the past few months been trying to “open up” the policies for 3D workers. Allowing them a grace period and “on paper” trying to be more accomodating. The truth of the matter is, any foreign worker who speaks out is sent home. Workers are regualry abused and housed in horrific conditions. They are beaten and berated.
Now they just lost another 5% of their income to pay for a language course that will do them little good.
I am VERY curious as to what the “official reasoning” is behind all this.
“The truth of the matter is, any foreign worker who speaks out is sent home. Workers are regualry abused and housed in horrific conditions. They are beaten and berated.”
Yeah, that kind of thing no doubt goes on, but I wonder how wide spread that kind of abuse really is? I would guess about 20 to 25% of the 3-D workers maximum are abused. Be careful of Korean media which tends to exaggerate and sensationalize everything because they want to sell stories. Why would the number of illegal workers continue to increase day after day if the conditions are so bad and if they’re whipped with chains? Yet, people continue to flock to Korea. Why? Because there’s something that draws them. They can work for couple of years in Korea, and buy a house in their homelands. It can’t be that bad if that’s the case.
Of course, foreign workers “flock” to Korea because it’s perfect. Their working conditions are perfect, and their bosses and co-workers treat them perfectly. None of those bastards have any right to complain, since they’re saving so much money, and there’s nothing really to complain about anyway. And even if they were part of the 20% (more likely 5%) who are mistreated, it’s not really much mistreatment, and the fact of making money still makes any possible compaint meaningless. Even those parayzed Thai women must have sent some money home at some point. After all, complaining is suspect in and of itself. Screw ‘em.
sarcasm out
Sounds like Quebec back in Canada. S’pose soon there’ll be language police checking up on 3D workers. Nothing like kicking someone when they’re already down.
The government imports labor here under a “trainee system,” which implies some kind of education is going on, and from that perspective you can see why they might say that the workers should know some Korean, although what exactly they’re learning here isn’t altogether clear from the people I’ve talked to.
should mexican laborers lern to speak english? how about hb1 applicants? take a look in your own back yard.
it’s not that the Korean government doesn’t want labor to come *in* . . .
it’s that they don’t want them to get comfortable and *stay* Labor policy for foreigners is organized on the idea that they can pull people in, use them for a few years, and get rid of them before they form substantial ties. Assimilation = bad.
They shouldn’t “lern” from you, Noogie. Es la vida, mucho trabajo por poquito dinero….
Why shouldn’t they learn Korean? This is Korea. They’re working in Korean factories. Their bosses are going to instruct them in Korean. They’re going to be yelled at and screwed over in Korean. Why not teach the Thai women how to say “Can I please get some gloves and a mask so my skin doesn’t melt off?” Or “Don’t hit me or I’ll call the police”. Or words like “lawsuit”. Or phrases like “Ministry of Labor”.
Perhaps it would be better to teach them how to run the machines in their native languages. That way nobody could talk to each other. You’d have a Malayasian working next to a Thai working next to a Pakistani and nobody could talk to each other about how their being mistreated. Wouldn’t that be better? Also, when someone’s about to make a mistake and cut their hand off, somebody could yell “Look out!” but the person couldn’t understand because they didn’t speak the same language.
Mexican laborers learning English in America? Hell yes they should. But many don’t and continue their poor existence. Once they or their children learn English, they have the option of moving up the food chain. Without that skill, they stay where they are.
Many foreigners come to Korea to teach English. If they knew Korean, I imagine there would be far less complaints about hakwon owners screwing them over and the teacher having no recourse because they don’t speak the language. I know my time here started to iimprove once I began to learn the language.
Malpaso that was great! I read your stuff just nodding my head off
But, I also have to go with Marmot on one part.
Why is this test mandatory? And mandatory not to all foreigners who work here but just for the 3D workers? That is blatant discrimination in my dictionary. If the Korean government made the policy to “encourage” the 3D workers to learn Korean (which they definitely need in this jungle) we could live with it, no we might even be happy with it.
I think it’d be cool to have a Korean-language test for all foreigners in Korea. It’d give people a reason to study and goals to aim for. I know there are a few out there, but something more official and actually useful in getting jobs would be really cool.
The government has no business meddling in this. It should be up to employers anywhere to decide the level of fluency required. And there is some truth to the fact that if it were so bad for the 3Ds then why have they been coming for decades? Free markets rock, government solutions suck.
Malpaso, you hit the nail on the head! I wish I spoke Korean, and after six months here I’m about to finally do something about it.
Well, it’s not a secret that Koreans treat these workers horribly. Considering this, I actually think, this type of testing is actually beneficial. But as they say, the devil’s in the details. First of all, most of these workers are extremely vulnerable not simply, because they don’t want to get “kicked out” but because they have no idea what kind of rights they have. Let’s say they get cheated by their employers, they wouldn’t even know if there were any NGOs working in Korea in their benefit, they might not even know how to take a subway. Secondly, it’s a question of demand. When there are an so many laborers who wants to come to Korea, it makes sense to hire those with some basic Korean skills. I really don’t see how this is any different from having foreign students take TOEFL before coming to the US to study. Of course, it is blatantly biased, because it’s like we force Mexicans to take TOEFL, but Japanese don’t need to take them. But well, this is the reality of the world we live in. If you are unfortunate enough to have a name like Muhammad Al-(insert syllable), then it’s a heck of a lot harder to enter the United States then if you happen to be Australian with a name like John Smith. And it’s also heck of a lot easier to enter Korea if you happen to be that John Smith, as opposed to you being a Muhammad.
Actually, I don??t like this. Why only 3-D laborers? Why not English teachers or Western employees in white collars? It is a double standard between Western people and Southeast Asians or between blue collars and white collars. 3-D workers come to Korea to take jobs that Koreans don??t want to take (like Mexicans in California). As a Korean myself, Koreans should respect these people. 3-D workers were already treated badly enough. The idea of mandatory test for getting a work permit is ridiculous. Since Southeast Asians speak good English, they could learn Korean easily as they live and work here. Give them a break.
careful about picking on english teachers, june. it doesn’t go over well here.
Thanks Nora. Actually, I may put it in a wrong way. As Marmot says, a mandatory test is unfair and it shouldn??t be done to anyone, I mean, neither for Southeast Asians nor for English teachers. The fact that the Korean government requires it only for Southeast Asians shows the government??s discriminative treatment for Southeast Asians.
Hey, feel free to pick on the English teachers all you like. Keeps things interesting.
Actually, to clarify my position, I don’t think a mandatory test, per say, is unfair. Unnecessary, but not unfair. What I think is unfair is that it’s being imposed on some foreigners but not others.
in case people didn’t quite get this, i was being sarcastic.
i do smell a rat, though… maybe the government is rewarding lonely planet for changing ’sea of japan’ to ‘east sea’ by giving them a chance to sell more phrasebooks.
I can think of two possible reasons for this move:
1. A way of favoring ethnic Koreans around Asia
2. Following China’s recent initiatives to promote the Chinese language around the continent , a way of promoting the Korean language around Asia as the second or third language of choice.
Concerning language requirements for those other than 3D workers, they already informally exist in most of the language institutions and universities I am familiar with. German, French, Japanese and Chinese instructors are often required by the schools to have a reasonably good grasp of either English or Korean. Discussions between them and administration are usually conducted in English. Contracts are written in English and Korean.
This is one case where I strongly disagree that Koreans are being unfair.
The Korean has the right to catergorise foreigners according to their own standards. If anyone thinks that an English teacher represents the same kind overstaying visa risk as a third world laborer, then its time to put down the crack pipe.
If foreigners want to go to Korea, then they will have to follow the visa regulations of the Korean government. After all, no one is forcing them to go to Korea.
Raising the bar on requirements would ultimately raise the bar for benefits, at least in the short-term, for the non-Koreans with sufficient language skills. For that reason, I’d welcome such a requirement. On a larger scale, however, it’s a flawed policy, regardless of whether some or all visa applicants are subjected, for that same reason - ultimately costs go up. Wedge had it right.
BTW, Wedge - you ever drive a Tiburon around Dalmaji?
Shakuhachilearning Korean is likely to prevent 3D workers from overstaying their visas? I should think that speaking more Korean would help them overstay their visas more easily and for longer.
If America said that Asians could work in America without any English, but that Mexicans would need to pass an English exam, I think it’d be the cause of an outcry about how racist the American government was. Why should it be any different in this case?
Actually, as an English teacher I think that a Korean test would be beneficial for teachers; problem is, (a) people who scored high on it would probably be shunned by many schools and hakwons that think an English teacher knowing Korean or even Korean culture is a minus, not a plus, and thus prefer not to hire people who’ve got more than a year of experience here. (One of the most prominent private high schools in the province I’m in has this very policy.) Meanwhile, I look around at the kind of moronic theories that some English teachers espouse or advance, and I laugh: anyone who had ever studied a foreign langauge before, or even a second language, even lazily would know better than to buy half their silly theories. I believe that a number of these lame-asses might understand this better (or shove off) if they indeed were asked to study a foreign language.
I suspect, though, that testing foreigners on their Korean would be ineffective, because in my experience many Koreans overestimate the ability of a white person who knows a little Korean. After a couple of words, we routinely hear “Wow, your Korean is so good!”
In any case, the problem, I think, is that imposing a test would be unfair, whereas offering a program somehow might be a lot more effective. I know there’s a crop of new graduates from a new Korean-Education-for-Foreigners program at a local uni here, and I’m sure there are other such graduates all over, looking for experience and for work. Programs could be set up. Only problem? Funding, I suppose.
Ah well, as someone else noted, the labour pool will just get smaller and then they’ll have to repeal it. Too bad, though: properly directed, such an initiative could help those 3D labourers, instead of making things harder for them. But, oh, goodness, God forbid they should actually integrate. (And still, the rate of reproduction is low, low, low.)
Gordsellar said: I should think that speaking more Korean would help them overstay their visas more easily and for longer.
To be true, where is the place that recruites foreign worker… i have been looking…after learning korean langauge for two years.
Are you sure , there is a job for them…..