Busan Police, busy tightening up security ahead of the APEC summit in November, launched a mass crackdown on illegal English teachers, booking some 37 foreign English teachers and arresting two Americans with forged degrees, one of whom also reportedly engaged in some debauchery with his female students. Lovely — a stupid foreigner trick if there ever was one. Those wanting video footage of degrees (with names clearly revealed) and foreigners answering tough questions from the police can check out the YTN report.
Note to Hankyoreh — It’s fine with me that you use the full names of the gentlemen involved, but I learned in a rather unpleasant way (no, I don’t want to talk about it) that one is not supposed to do that. And if I, as a blogger, can’t name names (even after they’re printed in the press), you shouldn’t, either.
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57 Comments
I’m having a conversation with some higherups @ Hankyoreh tomorrow (about something else) and will call ‘em racist to their faces, though I doubt they are going to be the exception in this case and usually aren’t.
The part about the one guy having “improper relations” with female students doesn’t stick to hakwon workers. Or at least it shouldn’t. It isn’t like teaching in a high school or a college. It’s a hakwon. In the hakwon I worked for my first 2 years, I put in 60 hours a week or so teaching and travelling between gigs outside of the hakwon. The days were spread out from 5:30 in the morning until 11:00 at night. The only Koreans I got to know were the students — all adults between the ages 20 to 50+ with most being at least 26.
So, unless this teacher was having sex with an underaged student at the hakwon, I don’t buy the “improper” relationship angle. It is two consenting adults in a hakwon - where students generally come to study for 2 or 3 months and the teachers are over worked. In fact, I often refer to the hakwon workers as “instructors” because even if you want to do a good job and teach, you can’t with all the handicaps that come in the hakwon industry.
As to the fake diplomas, I’m glad they were busted. You break the law, you should be prepared to suffer the consequences.
Well, I’m not sure if “racist” is what this is — I think you are the one who pointed out that the convention is more aimed at protecting those with family and what not here, the assumption being that the foreigner doesn’t. It’s just that if I can’t name names, neither should the Hani.
It’s one of those things. I don’t think there’s a racist motive, as if the Hani hates foreigner or white people or non-Korean Americans. But the unconscious double standard is based assumption is that the foreigner in question has no reason to be worried about his rep here in Korea, and that judgment being made on the basis of race, or what can be assumed about his race from his non-Korean name. The “result” is racist and while I’d never go around calling it that to the rest of the world and while I’d try to explain that phenomenon in Korea as “not really being racist,” I’m certainly going to mention the word when I talk to Hani tomorrow.
Since it falls in this general area, from time to time, you do hear a good bit in the Korean press, the tv news investigative report shows, about Korean profs and others who bought their Phds.
And that is not an excuse for the hakwon instructors who got caught. I’m glad they got caught.
The private language institute system is a cesspool. And not just from the instructor’s end.
You don’t know how I become enraged when I hear about these kind of things. What are you doing there contaminating my country? And still making excuses and defending those who do these kind of things. F* you all who favor and defend these mfs. (Sorry my english, I’m a portuguese speaking Korean)
Katz -
What exactly is it that’s ruffled your feathers? Are you outraged that people are teaching English in Korea without a BA? If so, you’ll be shocked to hear that many Koreans are teaching at Hakwons without the correct degree as well. Condemnations all round.
But referring to undocumented workers as “mfs” seems a bit extreme. You live in Portugal, surely you’ve encountered more than few people who are working without the requisite visa…perhaps you have earned a Euro or two off the books?
Or is this something deeper? Could it be that you’re not nearly as concerned with the prospect of English instructors working without degrees as you are with the notion that some of these foreign devils may be sleeping with ‘your’ women?
Just curious -
Was the female student a middle schooler?
Sleeping with an underaged student is one thing.
But again, hakwons are not “schools” and not a “workplace” in the way you mean.
In the hakwons I worked where adults were the only or primary students, they only came for one or two months.
Hakwons are not universities. They are not really schools. And as I said, they way they work you like a slave, you don’t get a lot of chances to get out in greater Korean society to meet people.
Most of the times I went out to nightclubs or sightseeing or to dinner or whatever, it was with adults that had come to my classes. In my first school, the boss “required” we socialize with the students — on our dime. (She also told us we were “not allowed” to be with a female Korean by ourselves (student or not)).
If someone who works in an adult hakwon decides going out with a Korean female “student” is not a good idea. Fine. But, I don’t see it as “improper” if they do.
It is a hakwon….
Excuses and defending yourselves again to do evil. F* you.
Marmot,
I believe I recieved the same email as you did a few months back.
The MOI have recently increased their screening processes for those seeking education-related visas. Now, official transcripts (which have been sent to the hiring institution and are to remain sealed for presentation to the MOI) are required. In general, this process has been taking longer but, while it presents some operational difficulties for the hiring institution, it??s welcomed for the additional protection it provides.
I hire teachers and trainers for credit and non-credit courses at a large university. During the course of my job, I??ve come across resumes that simply didn??t ??add up??. Sometimes, prospective hires were being truthful; after questioning them about academic and/or employment oddities, I simply required more documentation from direct sources to back up their claims. I??ve also had applicants submit histories of undocumented or illegal work (what were these people thinking). I am considering checking the credentials of those who were hired before I took the job ?? not because I doubt their teaching ability (I don??t, at all), but because the cost of confirming their good names is small in comparison to any damage to the university??s reputation.
To be sure, we know nothing of these arrested persons?? abilities ?? they may, in fact, teach well. However, we can be sure that exposure of their actions inflict damage on the goodwill of the institutions for which they work. For places which pride themselves on reputation, the taint from exposure of undocumented workers can do great harm.
Katz, I understand that this can be an emotional topic at times, but there??s no need for profanity aimed directly at anyone here. You should probably know that Marmot retains the right to ban anyone who does that.
Do evil? I assume you’re referring to the Hankyoreh newspaper.
No, you are trying to choke me, a*h*. And btw, you’re f* ugly.
Portuguese-speaking Korean in the U.S.? That’s evil right there, no two ways about it.
“And btw, you??re f* ugly.”
That’s why his name is dogbert. Sorry, just kidding..had to get that jay leno style dog joke in.
LOL. If that troll knew he were insulting the visage of the supreme leader of a nuclear-armed state, he might think twice.
Vladimir, is that you?
Putin looks better without the hair.
, ???????? Curious!
Katz,
When you start condemning the Korean scumbags trafficking women into the US, Canada and Australia for prostitution, we might start worrying about this comparatively trifling affair of sub-standard hagwon teachers.
We? Don’t i know your intentions?
Putin looks better without the hair.
Maybe you’re right, kimbob, but young Vlad’s comb-over has its charm, eh?
Katz, look at the two biggest headlines involving Korean-Americans lately;
Multimillion dollar Korean Prostitution ring operating on the West Coast gets broken up by the FBI, and two Korean-Americans steal $200 million from U.S. Investors, then flee back to Korea.
Not exactly comparable to a few illegal immigrants is it?
Man, I wasn’t referring to that.
Nope, coz you are a stinking, bigotted hypocrite who can’t see any wrong in the great Han reich. Get your own affairs in order first and teach the others how to play along nicely in a globalized world.
Katz seems to have a bit of a chip on her shoulder… funny, she considers Korea to be her country when she claims to be a native Portugues speaker (with a Brazilian accent maybe?). Anyway, those people should be kicked out of the country and yes they are scum BUT no more so than the people who are A) willing to knowingly hire them and B) the Koreans that have spent a semester abroad (US, Canada, Philipines, Switzerland, NZ, Australia, Etc.) at some language school and now think they can teach English either privately or in hakwons or both. But wait, I am not done-the other thing about this that really bothers me is the foreigner word in the article. Because Korea is such a homogenious society, most of us who are not at least Asian are not hard to spot but why does that have to be emphasized? How many times have any of you read in a American news paper “… five Hispanics robbed a store…” or “… 2 caucasian men stole a car…”? I am not going to say it doesn’t happen but usually it is a little more subtle-for example if there is a suspect the police are looking for or if being from another country/culture/language group might give the case a noteworthy aspect.
Dogbert-I don’t think you look ugly-let alone evil.
James, the answer’s straight from this post’s opening paragraph:
Busan Police, busy tightening up security ahead of the APEC summit in November, launched a mass crackdown on illegal English teachers…
Those teachers are surely ones to watch. Lord knows what could have happened, had they only been able to teach during APEC.
Seems really ass-backward to persue a few teachers for fake degrees when the entire hakwon business is unregulated, has no oversight, wildly divergent curriculums and unscrupulous owners. This is how the country handles it children’s education?
I don’t mind the crack down on illegal teachers. Should it be all the police or immigration people do? No. But, why not a periodic round up? It would be nice if they arrested the hakwon bosses who hire them as well. Both are knowingly breaking the law. So, I can’t work up some disappointment when a group of such teachers gets busted.
The hakwon industry in Korea has been needing a huge overhaul since the mid to late 1990s.
No need to beat up Katz. I think there may be some slight misunderstandings due to language. Anyway, I don’t think anyone is defending the guys who got busted. That kind of behavior is unexceptable anywhere you go.
EFL Geek — I got more than an email. I got called at work. Which is why I am keen to see the Hani take shit for using their names. If I should take grief for naming dudes, so should they.
Speaking of “improper relations”:
Lawyers oppose legislative move to punish marital rape
SEOUL, Aug. 17 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s leading lawyers’ group objected Wednesday to a proposed bill to punish spouses committing “marital rape,” saying that it may lead to the breakdown of the family.
The Korean Bar Association expressed its opinion that the legal punishment of spouse raping would be counterproductive.
“It is not desirable to bring a sexual problem between wife and husband to a criminal court, whatever its cause is,” the organization that claims 3,500 members said in a statement submitted to the National Assembly.
It may promote the collapse of the family or undermine the recovery of a marital relationship through normal sexual relations by excessively interfering in a private family matter, it added.
The statement came as the Assembly reviewed a bill proposed in June by Lee Eun-young, a lawmaker from the ruling Uri Party, to prosecute marital rape.
A husband would face a punishment of up to life in prison for raping his wife under the bill.
The lawyers’ group pointed out that the punishment is too severe.
“A marital rape using violence or blackmail is punishable by the current criminal law,” Ha Chang-woo, spokesman for the association, said.
Just another version of “defending yourselves again to do evil,” ne c’est pas?
Did any of you see that “marital rape” scene in ??????? ??????? That was pretty hardcore/revolting.
One of my (foreign) co-workers really liked that scene. I’m more into cosplay myself, har har.
I second James’ suggestion that the real issue here is the hagwon system. The most interesting thing about the bust, which comes out barely if at all from the media pyrotechnica about the evil foreigners is that more hagwon owners and brokers were busted than teachers.
The problem is not simply one of lack of govt regulation - that, God help us, wouldn’t be much of a solution in Korea, but that the market is, practically-speaking, closed to foreign investment/competition.
Maybe, Sperwer, but hagwons are run on the same principle as donut shops in Korea–does the Ministry of Education have any oversight in this area at all? I can’t imagine other countries being so lax with their kids’ education.
What are you talking about? Every other week some U.S. teacher gets nailed for banging his/her kids.
What are you talking about? Every other week some U.S. teacher gets nailed for banging his/her kids.
Are you serious? If this was true, it would be all over the Korean media. I havent seen anything like that.
I think he was referring to teachers actually in the United States.
Foreigner in post #29 says:
“Seems really ass-backward to persue a few teachers for fake degrees when the entire hakwon business is unregulated, has no oversight, wildly divergent curriculums and unscrupulous owners.”
Best summary of the Korean ESL I’ve heard in a long time.
“Katz seems to have a bit of a chip on her shoulder?? funny, she considers Korea to be her country when she claims to be a native Portugues speaker”
She? F* you. I didn’t say I’m a native Portuguese speaker, I was born there. And for your information I lived in 4 countries and speak 4 languages, a* h*.
Which four?
“but I learned in a rather unpleasant way (no, I don??t want to talk about it) that one is not supposed to do that”
!!! You are driving me crazy! Here I am trying to figure out how you learend it unpleasantly and why you wouldn’t want to talk about it. !!! By you mentioning it, I assume that this blog is full of people who would understand what happened to you and why you don’t want to talk about it, but being an outsider, I really am dying of curiosity. I thirst for knowledge!
The T’aegk Master also wrote:
“I got more than an email. I got called at work.”
Man, you got called at work for something on this blog? Musta been serious…. I can see why you’re somewhat steamed!
!!! My condolences to the Marm and my praises to Curious.
The hakwon system is really just a symptom of the larger dysfunctional Korean education system. There may be those that might argue that the Korean passion for academic pursuits combined with incredible competition to get into the top schools in Korea led to the birth of the hakwon system for people who are willing and able to pay extra to gain an educational edge on everyone else and certainly there may be some truth to that but I would argue that their existence is due to the fact that Korean school teachers are incompetent and do not teach what children are expected to learn forcing parents to look for a place that will teach them. Hakwons are not educational institutions, they are businesses that exist but to turn a profit. The greedy owners are left to take advantage of the parents. The other group of people in this equation are the Korean idiots that think that just because they spent a few months in another country they are now qualified to teach English either privately or in the hakwons too-but no one talks about them?? caveat emptor when it comes to Korean education.
The company I work for went back and used an American company to verify degrees obtained in the US by its employees in an effort to deal with any irregularities quietly rather than have it come out in the economic daily that they had a bunch of unqualified people working for them. I understand why they did it but I still had to lecture the HR people on the principle of due diligence.
Virtual wonderer wrote:
“!!! My condolences to the Marm and my praises to Curious.”
Why thank you (?), but I have no idea what for….
The “T’aegk Master” bit, perhaps?
He must be really be a master, too (of what, I don’t know), because it’s a samt’aegk, not any lowly old binary t’aegk.
‘did you see the marital rape scene in ’sympathy for lady vengeance’?’ krz
marital rape was also legal in this country. so folks who looked like you did the same thing. that don’t make it right. that means the koreans are as you once were. don’t forget that while you on that high horse bringing up rape again.
‘japanese and koreans share genetic ancestry due to the massive rapes the japanese unleashed onto the koreans.’ krz, man who likes to joke about women being raped.
James wrote:The hakwon system is really just a symptom of the larger dysfunctional Korean education system.I would call it a malignant outgrowth of the larger dysfunctional Korean education system (and you describe it that way below). And most Koreans would say the same.There may be those that might argue that the Korean passion for academic pursuits combined with incredible competition to get into the top schools in Korea led to the birth of the hakwon systemThat IS a major part of the reason for the problems today. But this did not lead to the birth of the private institution geared toward testing and language. These ???? have been around for hundreds of years in Korea, a country that had standardized testing centuries before the SAT.for people who are willing and able to pay extra to gain an educational edge on everyone else and certainly there may be some truth to that but I would argue that their existence is due to the fact that Korean school teachers are incompetentThat’s about as fair and useful a statement as saying that foreign English teachers in Korea are unqualified.
There are some unqualified teachers, yes. There are some people who get tenure and get lazy. But there are also lots of people who have drive and enthusiasm who get drowned in huge classes where students have lost respect for teachers and authority. And then they have parents bitching and whining that their kids aren’t learning “useful” stuff like how to pass the ?????? exam. As with the hakwons, the problems can’t all be placed on the teachers.and do not teach what children are expected to learn forcing parents to look for a place that will teach them.Which is ??????-related stuff. They put priority on their kids going to a top four-year university, not actually learning stuff. If parents would realize that there may be more money in having their kid go to a two-year college and gaining a skill, this might be alleviated.Hakwons are not educational institutions, they are businesses that exist but to turn a profit. The greedy owners are left to take advantage of the parents.Who themselves are often motivated by greed. When a parent wants to mortgage their kid’s childhood in order to secure their own retirement, I would call those parents’ values into question. It’s neo-Confucianism at its worst.The other group of people in this equation are the Korean idiots that think that just because they spent a few months in another country they are now qualified to teach English either privately or in the hakwons too-but no one talks about them?? caveat emptor when it comes to Korean education.Those idiots are people trying to get ahead and are basically trumping up their qualifications.The company I work for went back and used an American company to verify degrees obtained in the US by its employees in an effort to deal with any irregularities quietly rather than have it come out in the economic daily that they had a bunch of unqualified people working for them. I understand why they did it but I still had to lecture the HR people on the principle of due diligence.They were checking only the foreign nationals or the U.S.-educated Korean nationals, too? I know some places that distrust the allegedly foreign-educated Koreans more than the foreigners. We’ve been asked to check up on a few people.
Anyone with a foreign degree-Koreans included. I agree, sometimes it seems like the distrust is greater for the Koreans educated abroad than for the foreigners. You are of course right about the hakwons, there is more to it than I let on, they have been around in Korea for a very long time (although I do wonder if there was a time when they were more respectable than they are now) and there are some qualified foreign and Korean teachers here that DO a good job and enjoy it.
Well, I see little wrong in confirming what people claim is true is, in fact, true. As I mentioned, I am considering this, but I have no interest in obtaining new information - merely in confirming what people have already stated. In what way is this problematic for anyone except those who have lied?
The Korean hakwon industry is regulated by the government.
When the school my recruiter helped me land in turned out to be going bankrupt, and I wasn’t given more than 50,000 won a week to live on - if that - for two months. And my contract was used for toilet paper.
And I ended up in an apartment with no electricity, no gas to heat shower water or cook with, and little money to buy food with….
…..the government made it plain the only way I could legally continue to teach in Korea was if my hakwon boss gave me an official written letter of release saying I could work somewhere else.
Even then, the government regulators informed me, once I found a new employer, I would have to quickly leave Korea and get a new visa in another country with sponsorship from a new hakwon boss.
This was supposed to be done qucikly, I was told, after I somehow got the magical letter of release from the guy I could barely control myself from pounding into a little bloody spot on the floor, which the government said I had better do quickly (the getting the release and finding new work — not killing my current boss) - because they said since I had refused to keep teaching for nothing and had quit working — if I didn’t get such a letter and wasn’t working for my visa-sponsoring boss, I could technically be deported.
So, I am painfully aware there is some government regulation and oversight going on in the hakwon system.
It is at least in part significantly due to the legal definitions of the hakwon system that the industry is as shitty as it has been for over ten years.
The South Korean owners treat you literally like a slave sometimes, because they believe they own you, and after my experience in about as worse a case situation as you can get, and having found out how the government works to protect the interests of even the worst bosses, I know the government does do some regulating……
The hagwon problem is, imho, just a subset of a much bigger human resource problem. Too many of the “best” companies have terrible hiring policies, and just aim for Seoul, Yonsei and Korea university grads. Bad hiring policies mean people feel they must go to S, Y or K.
Compare the average foreign-administered company to the average prestigious Korean company. Prestigious Korean company is full of smug, dim folk from the elite schools. Foreign companies are often full of extremely talented people who went to other schools but who could not catch a break from the Korean companies… and who are often extremely grateful to have been given a chance to be judged on talent instead of some mindless other criteria.
Yes, a generalization, but I think a useful one.
Anyway, those people should be kicked out of the country and yes they are scum…
Scum? Who is being called ’scum’? Teachers who screw underaged students (as the Marmot said ‘one of whom…’, which doesn’t quite justify ‘those people’, being plural as it is) or people who come to teach in Korea who are unqualified? If the latter, is this not hyperbole? In the comment section here, I don’t see ’scum’ applied to a person who runs one of the worst dictatorships on the planet (or to a leader who invades a country on a flimsy pretext, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths). But unqualified English teachers deserve this epithet? Let’s not sink to a troll’s level here, just to make a point more palatable to said troll (even if it was supposed to be the ’sugar to help the medicine go down’, so to speak).
I’m still not clear. Was the improper sexual relationship with a minor who was a student or just “improper” because it was an adult student?
Well, that??s a reasonable question, usinkorea, and it ought to have been made clear by the newspaper from the beginning. Unfortunately for us, full disclosure just doesn’t generate the profits the way that hyped-up moral outrage in absence of fact can, so the paper??s kept that to themselves.
Curious,
“He must be really be a master, too (of what, I don??t know), because it??s a samt??aeg?k, not any lowly old binary t??aeg?k.”
I thought I understood. Now I don’t know what’s going on. All those apostrophe’s makes Korean look Klingon.
Qa’pla!