By SHELTON BUMGARNER
Marmot’s Hole Guest Blogger
“TeaCha, TeaCha, you leaving?” one of my students said out of the blue in late July, 2004. My heart sank and my personal experience with the visa problems that face oegugin ESL teachers began.
My student asked me this ominous question on the last day of my school’s intensive summer and within days, I had been moved to another hagwon in my school’s chain and began an adventure that wouldn’t end until November of that year.
That’s when I found myself at my current school, not knowing that I was a wanted man. After I left, my original hagwon was sold to its director. I didn’t realize that the moment it was sold, I was an illegal alien in Korea. That school was my sponsor and once it was sold, someone should have helped me go through the whole process of registering with immigration again.
Did anyone do that?
No.
During the course of the crisis that surrounded my attempt to stay in the country, I would often find myself humming a few bars of, “It’s no fun / being an illegal alien.”
What brought the crisis about what two things happened at about the same time — one of my replacements tried to get his resident alien card only to get detained, while my by-the-book boss ran into trouble when he tried to register me with immigration.
The folks from my original hagwon were told to go “underground” while their director straightened everything out.
It all came to a head about a year ago. (The post was originally posted elsewhere, but I moved it to Ahssa! earlier this year.)
I sat there as the immigration officer gave Brent, Patricia and the fellow from HelloEwha hell for what felt like a good 30 minutes straight. Her tone of voice was of shocked bureaucratic outrage. It sounded like the Korean version of “What the hell were you thinking?”
It was amusing that after all of this, she sang a recent popular KPop song in a lovely voice while she worked at her desk to kick my friends out of the country. “She was very strict,” Brent said in a sad voice as we looked at her doing her work.
I talked to Brent off and on during this and he told me that Rick, Steve and maybe Peter were in serious, serious trouble. Like kicked out of the country for year trouble. I came pretty close to texting Steve to tell him they were in trouble, but thought better of it. It wasn’t like I could really change anything. I feel bad about that, a little bit…but I didn’t have enough information to be able to give them a understanding of what the hell they should do.
[...]
On the way home, Brent talked like only two of Patricia’s three teachers were in trouble. I assumed he meant Steve and Rick since Peter only has a month to go on his contract. I got a cold chill when Brent made the universal sign for “handcuffs” and said that two of Patricia’s teachers were going to be arrested immediately and sent to the airport. He talked like by the end of the day at least two people I knew were going to be headed home for what could be a year.
“Do you mean they couldn’t teach in Korea for a year?” I asked Brent.
“They would have to teach in Japan or Taiwan. They could not teach here for at least a year,” he said.
Brent said he felt bad because while he was so wrapped up in getting my shit straightened out, he realized he could have told Patricia something that would have helped Steve and Rick stay in the county…but after a bit of thought, I realized that Patricia probably would not have heeded his advice, anyway.
14 Comments
It is stuff like this, and a whole lot more, that helped make South Korea a magnet for people willing to use fake diplomas or just run around with tourist visas doing the work.
I came to Korea just as the ESL native speaker……
I decided to make this comment a blog entry because it is going to take some space….
http://www.koreasojourner.blog-city.com
These ‘kids’ who come here to teach have to learn to either be more accountable for themselves or realize not to fuck with the fine folks at immigration.
When I see the shit that these Generation Y idiots try to pull off here I just can’t help but shake my head and laugh.
fine folks at immigration??? I shouldn’t think so. There are a lot of racist idiots, and also a bunch of corrupt people there [I know what it took my lawyer to clean up the mess the immigration had created themselves when we changed my visa from one company to another: I paid the bill...]. Apparently large lawyers offices who cater to the needs of foreign companies have people who “entertain” on a regular basis the immigration officers in charge of dealing with their clients’ employees. Duh.
I am sure there are of lot of dumb fucks playing [or rather trying to play] foolish tricks in Korea. But let’s not forget that the Immigration Office is a bunch of raving racists who wield enormous power with little oversight. It was hard enough to renew my visa with the comfort of a lawyer and the position of a business executive, so imagine what it must be for clueless kids without resources trying to get a teaching visa. I spent 11 years in Korea. I had to renew my visa every year, and had to leave last year when my visa run out, as I had left the company I was working for. Here, in France, my wife got a 10-year resident card. I can’t help but compare…
And that is a crucial point…
It is Korea’s law and they can do whatever they want with it, and teachers who decide to work around it should be willing to pay the price, but this story is more about run of the mill ESL instructors who were trying to do it right per the law who get screwed nonetheless.
And it is this situation that helped create South Korea as a destination to be avoided by teachers who do some research on the internet and want to be legitimate — and a place that attracts those who don’t might trying out a country that has a reputation for underhanded dealing with its hakwon industry.
I got a feeling about this shift as it happened in the late 1990s.
South Korea generated this problem for itself…
“who don’t mind trying out”
I’ve heard stories of rudeness and incompetence at immigration and I believe them, but I have to say that during my 13-year-stay, I never had a problem. In fact, one year my university was even later than usual with the paperwork despite a few polite reminders and I rushed to immigration two days before my scheduled departure to the states. I brought my ticket with me to show the officer while pleading for expedited service. Didn’t even need to show the ticket. The officer told me to sit down and ten minutes later, my passport appeared with a new visa. Didn’t slip the guy a white envelope, either.
I agree with Dda that the annual renewal thing is annoying. How about green cards, Korea? You say you want globalization, so why not make it easier for foreign nationals to make Korea their permanent home? Even foreigners in red China can get green cards if they meet residency and language requirements.
Dda the “fine folks” quote wasn’t meant to be literal. Everyone knows when dealing with immigration dept workers they are pretty much ‘gods’ and you smile, nod and speak when you are spoken to. Because my wife was extra-polite to them, they allowed my visa to be extended to two years rather than having to return the next year.
I agree with Sonagi. Whenever I dealt with the Korean Immigration office I was impressed with how fast they processed my paperwork. Canadian Immigration workers were slow as fuck and rude as hell. After trying to renew my passport I wanted to the kill the little bitch who gave me a hard time. Suddenly the function of the glass partition that separated us became clear.
My brother’s nanny had neglected to update her visa and Canadian Immigration told her get outta town before sundown. Period.
I’ve seen ? and had my share of ? way too many bad moments at/with Immigration, including a similar case as you, Sonagi. I did bring my plane ticket, and I was lawyered up already, but the asshole at the ?Έ°???? didn’t want to hear anything. He was very unpolite, using ?°??§? and shit. We left, and the paralegal told me “this is one of the most difficult guys in Mokdong”. A few days later, the situation was solved, apparently after some entertainment.
Re: green cards, that’s precisely the point: they don’t want foreigners to stay too long. They want our companies to invest there, but please stay away from our country. My last visa’s difficulties started when a guy there decided that I had changed companies [4 in 11 years for crissake!] once too many, and wanted to deny the visa on that basis. wdf? Telling the whole story would take up a few screens, so I’ll refrain, but it was a nightmare. I was even at a point without any visa, working illegally for my employer, because they had their ass firmly planted on their heads. And I remember saying once during all the meetings and crap that happened then, “But I am even married with a Korean woman!” which was answered by an immigration asshole with: “So what? Doesn’t give you any right!”.
A solution was finally found, involving threats to close the company, and some entertainment. With a proper DMZ between me, my company and the immigration office. That’s what lawyers are there for I suppose.
Prolly one of the most expensive D-8 visas that was ever issued, if you factor in the number of people involved and the time wasted on such crazyness…
You said it all dda. You were working without a visa. No employer is totally responsible for your status in Korea. It is your visa and your responsibility. There are so many foreigners working in Korea who get visas and then quit the job that hired them looking for greener pastures. It’s the oldest trick in the book here.
Immigration people don’t give a shit about the rubbish surrounding why you were in Korea working without a visa. I’m sure they’ve heard every excuse in the book. Government bureaucrats (here and abroad)can be brutal. My sister worked for revenue Canada and depending on how you treated her, you could leave the office happy as a clam or even in tears. Part of the perks of being a government worker.
The fact you were married to a Korean woman probably meant nothing because you were on a D-8 Visa.
steve the fact that for a month or two I was without a visa was because I had changed jobs, and applied for a new visa ? with my company sponsoring me, which is why they paud for legal fees… ? within the required timeframe, and after that it all went bonkers because someone in Mokdong decided that I shouldn’t be granted a D-8 but an E-7, although Immigration had told us that I had to apply for a D-8. It’s not like I was an ESL dude with a fake degree Made in Thailand. I was the manager of a foreign company in Korea. And it was a mess they created, not us… Which is why in the end I got my visa…
And the part about being married with a Korean woman meaning nothing to them wasn’t about the D-8 [which I was still waiting for]. It came up [it was back in late 2001, early 2002] as a remark about foreigners living in Korea. Like “no job, no visa”. If this has changed since I am happy, although it doesn’t matter any more to me, as I will never ask for a Korean visa anymore, but cool nonetheless.
/me shudders at the idea of dealing with Mokdong again…
shelton,
is it necessary to post so consistently about your english teaching trials and tribulations here? granted there will always be an english teaching thread on this site, but wouldn’t it be more appropriate and fit much better at dave’s esl or some such similar site?
fyi, these are rhetorical questions.
Just because they’re rhetorical, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a response. Wink.
In this specific instance, all of the ESL posts are timely and thus there shouldn’t be any issue with them being posted here. I have personal experience on the matter, and it seemed it wouldn’t be too much out of the zone of the Marmot’s Hole “brand image” to talking about stuff like that right now.
Oh…I’m thinking of starting a quick and dirty (to begin with) expat monthly at some point in the near future…any regular Marmot’s Hole comment folks interested in contributing?
dude,…
Shelton,
Rather than constantly quoting your students poor pronunciation, why don’t you correct it instead? I’ve found that my 9-year old Korean students have no problem calling me by a properly pronounced “teacher”. I?ve found that with the proper attention that Korean kids, adults are an obvious exception, should have no problem learning how to say even difficult words like ?ruler?? where they have to flip between the ?r?? and ?l?? sounds.