One more reason to love the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union:
Contents of education material produced by a teachers union has shocked the government with its aggressive criticism of the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Pusan.
According to Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon of the largest opposition Grand National Party (GNP), the Pusan chapter of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union posted the material, which condemned APEC for supporting the war in Iraq and free trade agreements, and a video containing similar messages on its Web site (http://busan.eduhope.net).
The 20-minute video footage parodies the hit American television show “Baywatch,” by replacing actors’ and actresses’ faces with those of participating leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
In the footage, President Bush was described as forcing South Korea to support his war against terrorism by continually using the “f-word” against President Roh. South Korea, Japan and other APEC member countries were also blamed for pushing forward with free trade agreements to indiscriminately sell their products to other countries despite possible the negative impact on ordinary people.
Giving a balanced account in the classroom of global economic trends is one thing. This crap, however, has no business anywhere near a school, even if some of the video work is quite clever.
UPDATE: Not surprisingly, GNP spokeswoman Chun Yu-ok is unhappy with the KTU, and she doesn’t mind saying so.
32 Comments
One would think that they could at least make it plausible, like Team America.
classic.
Someone should ask the KTU where they would get their money for computers to produce such propaganda if not for the benefits of globalisation. After all, Korea has only become wealthy because of free access to foreign markets for companies like Samsung and LG. BTW, does anyone know of a website for the KTU where one could register their dissaproval of this clip?
Someone really needs to send a copy of that tape (and an English transcript) to The Daily Show. Would love to hear Jon Stewart’s take on it.
How did they ever become the educators of the future generation?
Without putting them all in jail, how to fight them back?
Hmmm, looks like this introduces a wedge between Roh and part of his base.
I especially liked the part where the history of APEC is described and all the current leaders of the various states (Dubya, Koizumi, Roh) are all in office as far back as 1993. Perhaps this is due to the KTU’s decided preference for a President-for-Life type system…
Maybe APEC could be the catalyst for a “Save the (South Korean) Children” campaign — when the wider world discovers that the psychological abuses South Korean children are suffering at the hands of Khmer Rouge-esque teachers unionists is second only to the deprivation endured by North Korean kids.
In the future, members of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union should, when they move into a new neighborhood, have to go door to door to inform their new neighbors that they have past records of abusing young children.
One of our associates yesterday somehow got himself into the position that Korean people “lived a lot better before capitalism” (when? — “I don’t know, maybe 2000 years ago”) and that “most Koreans are now desperately poor” thanks to capitalism. He likes democracy, but says that in North Korea people are “more equal” than in South Korea, and to his way of thinking that equality is a better outcome than what what prosperity has wrought in the South. It was really surprising to hear. And yet I’ve heard it before, from a couple other Korean lawyers as well.
Brendon, you’re not the only one who heard this before. When I first heard this few years back, I was shocked as well and I attributed this to a lone nutcase woman who participated in student demonstrations (an undong-gwan). But since then, I don’t know.. that kind of thought seems to be more prevalent than we think it is, especially among the 20 and 30 somethings. I think South Korea should open up the borders and let people immigrate to North Korea.
What’s really frustrating is hearing these nitwits defend closed markets like the Korean rice market. If everyone in Korea is “desperately poor” (let’s say, monthly family income W800,000, which would be poor indeed) as some contend, wouldn’t it improve the lot of the poor masses to be able to spend just W20,000 a month on rice instead of W100,000 for domestic rice? Suddenly 10% of their monthly income is freed up to spend on other living costs, leading to an immediate and profound improvement in their lot.
Me, I’m “rich” so the odd W80,000 here or there is basically pocket money and doesn’t make a material difference to my family. (Maybe it would, since I’m pinched by the W35,000,000 a year spent on elementary school for two kids.) But for a “desperately poor” family, the W1,000,000 a year that could be freed up from the subsistence purchase of overpriced staple foods like rice might be better allocated to something that would improve their lives — say, a PC with a genuine Microsoft Windows OEM license. Or a Macintosh. Or eating more meat. Whatever.
And by what measure were things “better” before capitalism? At the turn of the century, which might as well have been 2000 years ago, Koreans’ average life expectancy was less than the age of 25. Now it’s almost 80. The population of Seoul was 100,000 or so. Now it’s 12 million. A “poor” person in Korea today lives at a standard unimaginable even 100 years ago. Running water, sewerage, electricity, cheap public health care, literacy. Bigger, stronger, healthier, wealthier. Yep, things just keep getting worse and worse!
How these people can delude themselves otherwise is a real mystery.
To be fair, I’ve heard a lot of people in former communists systems say similar things — “Yes, we were poor. But we were all poor, so we did not notice so much.” On the other hand, I don’t recall many of them saying they would like to return to communism.
People are funny — we don’t value wealth nearly as much as we value relative wealth. Big fish, small pond…
How interesting that people in arguably the most Confucian country in the world — a system almost without equality — would claim to value equality to highly.
To be fair, I?€™ve heard a lot of people in former communists systems say similar things — “Yes, we were poor. But we were all poor, so we did not notice so much.” On the other hand, I don?€™t recall many of them saying they would like to return to communism.
Last month I went to the International Bar Association annual conference held in Prague. A beautiful city and one bustling with new economic activity. On the last night I went out for a last stroll through the city and ended up on a tram, alone in the car with a little old lady — who kept staring at me and smiling. “Are you American?” she finally asked, because we do have a certain look, I guess.
So I moved over to sit next to this old lady because she could speak English very well, and because it seemed she wanted to talk. I asked her about the changes in the Czech Republic over her lifetime, since she’d been born in 1930 and had seen almost all of the major events of the 20th century from her front-row seat there. We talked about a bunch of things, but when I asked her on balance whether she likes the new Czech Republic, this little old lady beamed and quietly said “Oh yes, very much. I never dreamed that it would be possible to live like you, in peace and freedom.” It was the highlight of my trip (the lawyers’ conference was a bore, as usual).
I look forward to having that kind of discussion one day in Pyongyang as well.
As a public school teacher in a unionized district, I am shocked that a Korean teachers’ union would put this kind of video together. I cannot imagine any American teachers’ union making such a blatantly political video, nevermind the foul language. I guess the teachers think cursing in a foreign language is okay. Twice on the campus of Korea University, students I did not know said, “F*** you” to me as I was walking across the campus. Maybe they learned how to greet foreigners this way from their Korean teachers.
Twice on the campus of Korea University, students I did not know said, “F*** you” to me as I was walking across the campus.
To be fair, if you watch Hollywood movies (especially Quentin Tarantino or Kevin Smith) it might be possible to mistake “Fuck you” for the national greeting.
“What?€™s really frustrating is hearing these nitwits defend closed markets like the Korean rice market”
Of course I agree defending the rice market is a fruitless excercise, but to be fair, I think South Korea suffers from a typical country suffering from lack of natural resources. The often starvation era up to the 1970’s is fresh in many Koreans’ minds. Their reasoning goes like this. Yes it’s cheaper to bring in foreign rice from China or Vietnam now, but what happens if the world rice price goes up all of a sudden due to a crisis, like the oil price? Now you have S.Korea with no natural resources, suffering shortage of oil and now plus food and is unable to feed itself. That’s the ultimate fear that almost borders on paranoia, but that fear is what drives the anti-liberation of the rice market. The media perpetuates that fear and most Koreans have bought into that.
Lord, someone in the Ministry of Education should really do something about *this* kind of idiocy; it makes Korea look really bad, if not like a third-world country.
It amazes me all the time the stupid ideas that can come from some “educated’ Koreans. They are usually based on the economy, or economic policy.
I was recently speaking to two Korean high school teachers, and one started to say how much labour is wasted with every home cooking their own food, which lead to the obvious conclusion that each apartment building should have one big cafeteria at the bottom where everyone had to eat, to improve efficiency. The most stunning part of the conversation wasn’t that he came out with such a comment, but the fact that the other teacher nodeed and said “yes, what a great idea”.
I guess its amazing what people can believe when they really want to. (I won’t give examples of western beliefs, as they will prob cause the threat to get off topic).
These Commies will disappear as soon as Rho steps down, possibly March of next year. After that, you will be surprised. Korea will change as if night changes to day.
Most Koreans are experts in playing “follow-the-leader” game like Kimbob. They recognize who has the strength, and jump to greet the leader. No backbones. They never had it.
For a small country like Korea, this skill to identify the winning party and realign quickly to kiss ass is the very first survival skill. The very first.
Sonagi,
If some highschoolers in the US see an oriental, they pull their eyelids up and says “Ching-Chong-Chong”. They have not seen many orientals and do not know how to react. Yet, they like to show their superiority by making fun of you.
Some Korean college students have mental age of elementary school children. The ability to curse at a foreigner give them a sense of superiority.
Just forgeddaboutit. You cannot fight all dogs that bark at you. Fight ones that stop you from where you want to go. And, this type of racism can only be overcome by education. As more exchange between Korea and other countries occur, these country bumpkins with their racist attitudes will reform and will learn to respect foreigners.
Some of the members of the KTU need a trip to pyeongyang for a few years to get some re-education I feel…
You couldn’t take that seriously, it has got to be a joke right???
However APEC is a bit of a joke anyway, just a bunch of guys getting together and looking more important than what it is really is…
From the KT article:
“The controversial material is not mandatory for teachers and students,” Jeong Jong-tae of the union?€™s Pusan chapter said. “The Pusan Metropolitan City Office of Education has sent education material promoting the APEC summit and forum, which we thought seriously biased. We wanted to let students know the opposite side of the story.”
Nothing like matching bias with bias, eh? You know, it might be difficult to find unvarnished truth in this world, but it’s especially more so if you’re not even trying, and just producing caricatures of your own. Thanks for the ‘lesson’, KTU.
BTW, kimbob’s point above is well-made. Aside from the media, Korean rice producers perpetuate the reliance on locally-grown grain through the mantra of ????†??¶???´, which gets echoed at the local ??œ??????.
Given Korea’s geopolitical location, I’m not sure subsidizing rice production is a stupid idea. Expensive, yes, but stupid? Maybe once communism and jucheism fall and market access or more or less guaranteed. As for the video, it makes me want to nominate Baduk Minister of Education. But I’m sure we have some idiots who would agree with the KTU in our own national teachers unions.
Baduk, I am aware of racism in the US. The anecdote was a barb aimed at the TEACHERS who flooded the video with repeated use of the F-word.
Baduk Wrote….
And, this type of racism can only be overcome by education.
With the likes of the KTU educating the kids here? Me thinks not.
No, I was thinking of movies like
“Look who came to dinner”
“Karate kid”
or
“Rocky” (for Italians).
I am sure there are more. I have seen about 80% of movies ever made by Hollywood. I love movies.
And, movies can change people’s perception about other races. A great learning tool. Too bad that the KTU Commies are using it to spread their propaganda.
There is a play being made by former NK escapees about the prison camp in NK. The director of the play claims it will show “real” NK to SKs. I hope he makes the movie too.
To show that there are active anti-Commie sentiment in Korea, see this pic
http://www.chosun.com/editoria.....20237.html
The picture shows Pres. Rho in NK military uniform and saying “If you harm Prof. Kang JeongKu, I will turn you into this.”. Too bad that the middle section is blackened out. I guess it is a X-rated image. A woman getting raped?
The Blue house is so mad about the poster that it ordered to arrest the source. It may be taken off the web soon so see it before too late.
This pic may not have been possible even six months ago. But, now people know where Rho stands. And, people are mad at him. Prof. Kang broke the proverbial camel’s back.
This is a famous picture in Korea right now and I want some of you to see it, to make a fair assessment of Korean situation.
The money to pay for the propaganda video probably came from teachers’ union dues.
Isn’t it interesting the people aiming at Roh might get prosecuted while the administration squased the attempt on the Nutty Professor?
Both are violations of the same law, no?
To be fair, if you watch Hollywood movies (especially Quentin Tarantino or Kevin Smith) it might be possible to mistake ?€œFuck you?€? for the national greeting.
Yes, but as a dismissal [aka Bye Bye!], not meant as “Howayatodays?”
which lead to the obvious conclusion that each apartment building should have one big cafeteria at the bottom where everyone had to eat
Coming from a guy who probably reproaches his wife ?€“ if he has the balls to ?€“ about making a [insert here favorite food] that doesn’t compare with Mother’s. They’d get a riot in the kolkhozian kitchen in a New York minute…
Most Koreans are experts in playing ?€œfollow-the-leader?€? game… They recognize who has the strength, and jump to greet the leader. No backbones. They never had it.
For a small country like Korea, this skill to identify the winning party and realign quickly to kiss ass is the very first survival skill. The very first.
totally agreed. watch how many folks realign from whatever party is failing to form an all-new-and-improved party that stands for 1.) the proclaimed platform of whomever appears most powerful and 2.) claims to reinvent the political wheel in order to offer something totally new and ambiguous.