Surfing around the Korean portal sites looking for sordid tales involving foreign English teachers, I came across a piece from Dec. 28 (hey, better late then never) in the Herald Gyeongje reporting that some dumb 32-year-old American teacher was arrested on charges of habitually doing cocaine here in Korea.
Yongsan police busted the guy after being tipped off that foreign English teachers were sniffing the white powder at clubs in Itaewon.
A police official said, “It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that more than 90 percent of American drug offenders are English teachers who entered Korea on work visas… Since even most small provincial language schools employ foreign teachers, the trend is that drug crimes by foreigners are spreading nationwide.”
At this point, I direct English teachers to GI Korea’s helpful tips on how to disguise yourself as a U.S. soldier when you’re out on the town.
Interestingly, the Herald Gyeongje found it fit to not only use the accused full name (first, middle and last) and print his area of residence, but they even named the school at which he worked.
13 Comments
All I can say is — HOLY SHIT!
Where the hell did they get the damn stuff, is what I wanna know. The mind boggles that anything like this could possibly happen — and that the person would get caught!
You don’t live in Itaewon, I take it.
You mean Shelton’s not on drugs already?
You can tell they don’t teach Boolean logic here:
1) 90% of American drug offenders are English teachers
2) Most small provincial language schools employ foreign teachers
THEREFORE, 3) “…the trend is that drug crimes by foreigners are spreading nationwide.??n
By that logic, maybe 10 Americans were busted last year for dope, 9 were English teachers in Seoul and all provincial teachers are coke-free Canadians.
Oh. The Itaewon angle makes sense. Since I don’t live in Itaewon, that was just my gut reaction. I will now give up my knowledge of the expat secret handshake.
It doesn’t take Itaewon or foreigners to get meth into Korea. North Korea does it, and I’m sure they don’t work with anybody from the U.S. military, at least I hope to heaven they don’t.
The shipping industry in South Korea is huge, and the fishing industry is sizable. You could ship in drugs just like they do into the U.S. The port authority in places like Savannah GA can’t catch everybody. Why should we think Mokpo, Inchon, Pusan, or some other Korean port is so good at stopping trafficing it has to come in from somewhere else? I’ve seen a lot of Korean transport vessels with Hyundai and Samsung box cars arriving in Savannah. They turn around and go back to Korea too. And they make calls in places like the Panama Canal too……
Oh….on the Itaewon front, here is this flash back.
http://www.usinkorea.org/crimes/2000_drugs/
It’s about the commander of AFKN getting busted with four pounds of coke in his apartment.
Talk about a great spokesman for USFK…..
I believe the story was he had it shipped with his household items when stationed in Korea. I also seem to remember reading his previous duty location was Panama, but I could have gotten that wrong.
Let me guess, there was no context to this story, such as the overall number of drug arrests in Korea last year (including Koreans).
Contrast that with this recent gem from the Chosun: “Wealthy Koreans are increasingly becoming sometimes unwitting customers of Chinese gangs of drug pushers in mainland China.” That’s the article that goes on to say: “women tourists are then prone to having sex with Chinese men working at exclusive women-only clubs there…” Poor hapless ANONYMOUS Koreans! Fooled by Chinese gangsters into drug use and sex! Bad American (insert name and address here) Engrish teacher!
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....90012.html
At least with Korean media you can see the bias, it’s as subtle as a flying sledgehammer.
Michael: That’s “sredgehammel- uh”!
My bad Su-pu-woo-ruh!
Where does one get coke in Korea? Lotteria?
Anyway, coke, if it is available, would be shunned. Why do coke when you can do meth?
I have never taken meth but is it not a skanky drug compared to coke?
One Trackback
[...] racist hagwon owners and skirt-chasing (not that there’s anything wrong with that), whinging, drug-using teachers, what’s there not to [...]