Guest Post by BRENDON CARR
Member of the Angry Expat Commentariat
My curiosity was piqued by an aside from commenter usinkorea in the comments to the thread about the U.S. visa outrage. He described some article in the always-execrable Korea Times about the travails of English teachers in Korea. Basically, that rag will print anything from anyone who bothers to submit. There’s no editorial process to speak of, which results in some of the worst tripe appearing on their pages; although there are a few decent columnists (Mike Weisbart, although he sometimes comes off as having Stockholm Syndrome, at least is obviously intelligent and writes well), most of the “opinion” there is utter crap. And there is an overrepresentation of two annoying types of characters: (i) English-speaking Koreans (usually professors) who crack out a thesaurus before spewing forth circular and meaningless verbal diarrhea — don’t stop writing before you run out of vocabulary, Chulsoo! — about studying English, and (ii) English teachers complaining about getting screwed by the hagwon.
The masturbating Koreans I can forgive, since they’re obviously clueless. But good God am I sick of the English teachers. There is so much information freely available on the Internet about how Korea is a disaster for so many teachers (my personal all-time favorite is “Prisoner of Wonderland”) that one must willfully disregard every warning, including the warnings of one’s own Embassy (in diplomatese, the U.S. government is screaming “Don’t do it! You’ll get cheated!” but few listen) in order to come here and teach English.
Curse their sudden but inevitable betrayal. Because it produces dribble like the following, taken, apparently, from the March 17 Korea Times. The writer feels doubly betrayed because his Embassy refuses (understandably, since extraterritoriality for white people went out of style about 70 years ago) to come down like the Hammer of Zeus™ bringing the full weight of U.S. power onto the heads of the hagwon owners. Needless to say the Koreans couldn’t give two shits about him either — it’s open season on foreigners here.
What irks me about this clown’s article is he has the gall to compare himself to the third-world women and factory workers who are trafficked to Korea to work as slaves. He wants the National Human Rights Commission to set up a special, “fully-staffed” bureau to avenge the English teachers (sure, since that Commission does so much for the real slaves). Get over yerself, buddy. You got cheated on a contract — that’s not a “human-rights violation” (besides, Korean officialdom is not yet convinced we are human anyway). So what?
Also, don’t make pronouncements on law if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Here’s the key graf:
In legal terms, a contract is an agreement between two or more parties of equal standing. There must be an offer, acceptance of that offer with mutual consent and each party must benefit. It can be formal, informal, written, oral or just plain understood. There must also be “consideration” — something for something — which in British and American law has slightly different meanings. Nonetheless, consideration must be present if the promissory aspect of a contract is to be enforceable.
You’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Under Korean law the only elements of contract are offer and acceptance. There is no requirement the parties have equal standing, no requirement for mutual benefit, and certainly no requirement for “consideration”. Plus, of course, a contract to Koreans is really all about power and not about law or even ethical responsibility. Until you’ve been suckered into coming here to teach, you have the power. Once you’re here, living in his place, sponsored by him into a slaveowner’s E-2 visa, and dependent on him for your living expenses, guess who has the power? Sorry dude.
Here’s my advice for would-be English teachers: (1) Don’t come here! (2) Since you’re going to come here anyway, dummy, make sure that you have six months’ living expenses (a single young person can live in Korea on about $1000 a month) and cash for return transportation home. Odds are good that you’ll be cheated. At least if you take steps to make sure you’re not helpless, it will be a mitigated disaster instead of an unmitigated disaster.
(See original Korea Times piece below)
Trafficking of English Teachers?
By Chris Brockie
There is something incongruous about being a native-speaking English-language teacher in South Korea.
Arguably, because they are university educated from essentially affluent, middle-class backgrounds, and relatively well paid, they are capable of handling employment problems when and if they arise.
Sadly, though, despite numerous complaints to their respective embassies here, nothing effective is done to ensure their rights are upheld when problems do arise. Embassies argue these are contractual disputes and therefore they cannot involve themselves.
The United States’ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2005, released earlier this month by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor said in its report on Korea: “Foreign workers working as language teachers continued to complain that the language institutes for which they worked frequently violated employment contracts.” That their rights are often usurped is without question.
Accepting this begs the question: “Why, is so little done when their contracts are dishonored?”
Notwithstanding the multitude of horror stories about the ill-treatment meted out by English-language institutes and others to native-speakers here, Westerners entering into English-teaching contracts believe the contract will be honored, that the terms and conditions in them are truly represented. Yet, the reality is exceedingly different. Most contracts are poor translations of Korean-language contracts. This in itself breaches Korean law as the contract is supposed to be a true and accurate translation.
In legal terms, a contract is an agreement between two or more parties of equal standing. There must be an offer, acceptance of that offer with mutual consent and each party must benefit. It can be formal, informal, written, oral or just plain understood. There must also be “consideration” — something for something — which in British and American law has slightly different meanings. Nonetheless, consideration must be present if the promissory aspect of a contract is to be enforceable.
The contract must be entered into freely, without duress or undue influence. Each party must be legally capable of doing so, and the contract must not be illegal or contrary to public policy.
Importantly, it must be made in “good faith,” that is, if one party offers something which is intentionally different from that which he or she says is being offered, then the contract is unenforceable. It is this aspect, “good faith,” which, in my view, renders most contracts between a Korean employer and a native-speaking English teacher invalid.
Put differently, the native speaker signs in good faith, accepting the terms and conditions therein only to find the employer has an often different interpretation of the contract; that is, they never intended meeting all or some of the terms either on the teacher’s arrival or at some later date.
Sadly, it is not only small, independent academies that do this. The big players, including large-scale corporations who run their own schools for their employees’ children, are also culpable. For example, only this year a major corporation refused to honor a contractual airfare entitlement — standard in many such contracts — arguing the employee, who had found another position here, must not come back to Korea in order to gain the entitlement. Nothing of this nature was in the contract, nor had it been in three previous contracts with the same employer.
There are numerous other examples of this one employer breaching contract terms at whim. And these breaches are replicated across the country by hundreds, if not thousands, more employers.
Speak to most native-speakers teaching English here and they will have a multitude of firsthand experiences or have knowledge of coercion, intimidation, non- or under-payment of wages, withholding of passports and/or university testamonials, fraudulent deduction of money for non-existent health insurance, turning off heat and water supplies to apartments should teachers threaten action with the authorities, and many, many more such incidences.
Korea and the various consular representatives here need to wake up to reality.
For the governments of overseas nationals to refuse to become involved is farcical, particularly when this is a multi-billion dollar industry in which their respective citizens are openly defrauded and have their human, social and political rights usurped.
That such complaints are recognized by the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in its human rights country report on Korea is clear indication problems exist.
The trouble is nobody is willing to tackle them, to find solutions.
Here’s my solution: A fully staffed fulltime bureau within the National Human Rights Commission of Korea to investigate all, and I mean all, complaints made by native-speaking English teachers against employers. And empower the Commission, giving it real teeth to fine, jail, or close schools.
Why?
From a different perspective, the lack of good faith expressed by Korean employers in teaching contracts amounts to nothing more than deception, an aspect often raised in human trafficking.
Before you laugh, consider the United Nations’ view: “Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. And finally, this: Victims often consent to the initial stage of trafficking because they are misled or deceived by traffickers.
{ 72 comments… read them below or add one }
OK, I’m just cutting and pasting from the U.S. Visa post, but this part of his letter really made me laugh:
“Here’s my solution: A fully staffed fulltime bureau within the National Human Rights Commission of Korea to investigate all, and I mean all, complaints made by native-speaking English teachers against employers.”
Good luck getting that to happen–the commission is too busy decrying human rights “abuses” in the U.S. (and avoiding comment on North Korea).
Maybe it’s time for Podori to launch a crackdown on these uppity Engrish teachers
You beat me to it, Brendon; I was thinking the same thing the minute that tool started pretending that contract law in the U.S. is applicable in Korea.
Did you ever notice as well that these “guest writers”‘s “credentials” get grander with each piece too? This guy went from English teacher to anthropology fellow.
I’m not really a credentialist (in my office we have a running in-joke about a guy we know who went to Brown University — we know because it seems he finds a way to mention it in every conversation), so that part doesn’t bother me. If one has something interesting to say, then I say let’s hear it. Too bad that’s not what happened in the Korea Times.
Prisoner of Wonderland is perfect.
I don’t quite understand what the point of this post is. Are you saying if anyone is screwed out of his contract, he has no right to be angry and complain because he decided to work in Korea on his own? What kind of reasoning is that? The state department warning about working in Korea is just that, a warning – that you should be careful. It doesn’t say don’t go to Korea. Even if you are careful, there is no guarantee that you will not be cheated. One thing I do agree, English teachers aren’t nearly treated badly as the Third World guest workers. Despite problems, majority of English teachers, are treated and compensated very well for the amount of work that is expected of them, and most are happy. Well, let’s ask the English teachers themselves if they are happy. This is a little unofficial unscientific poll of some of the teachers which shows only 20% of the teachers unhappy.
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=53200
I just don’t understand why this writer bursts out in anger against the English teachers. What did they do so wrong, other then be in Korea and one of them dare to complain about the working conditions?
I think Brendons post is excellent.
Nice work fuckwad. As if the Korean population at large doesn’t already have an extremely skewed perspective of what constitutes “human rights violations” (Ohno violated our human rights with his Hollyoood action! Our basic human rights were violated when Old Boy didn’t win an Oscar! John Bolton is denying us our human rights by insulting Kim Jong Il! Hong Kong is denying us our basic human right to violently demonstrate!), and now you want to add petty complaints from English teachers to the list? Grow the fuck up.
In an exclusive, I have obtained a list of the first batch of complaints by English teachers in Korea to the newly formed Human Rights Commission:
Male teacher, 28, American, asked hagwon secretary to order him Kimchi chiggye from the local delivery restaurant. Restaurant delivered Dwenjang chiggye.
Female teacher, 24, New Zealand, was reimbursed $967 for airline ticket when the correct amount was $976.
Female teacher, 32, British, 269 lbs, reported that her hagwon failed to respond in a timely fashion when she requested that they replace a broken bed frame in her apartment. This was the 4th broken bed frame, all due to structural failure.
Male teacher, 29, Canadian, claims that the hagwon director “gives the American teachers all the good time slots in the teaching schedule” and regularly “disrespects the Maple Leaf.”
Female teacher, 23, Australian, claims that her students tell her she “talks funny” and ask her “why she doesn’t speak American.”
Male teacher, 27, American, complains that the Korean teachers at his hagwon “speak Korean too much.” Also claims that he “knows they’re talking about him” but can’t prove it without a translator.
Male teacher, 30, Canadian, reports that his human rights were violated when the Korean teachers at his hagwon refused to change the channel on the television in the teachers lounge so he could watch the Canadian Olympic hockey team choke against Russia.
Female teacher, 30, Irish, claims to have experienced over 275 partial anal penetrations by means of “dong-jim.” Also says that “several of them were pleasurable, but most were not.”
Female teacher, 34, British, reports being emotionally and psychologically abused by her Korean co-workers refusal to believe she can eat spicy Korean food. Also claims that during a hagwon-sponsored dinner, her Korean co-worker specifically asked a restaurant employee to put extra water in her daegu-tang despite her protest that “She can eat spicy soup just like Koreans!”
Male teacher, 26, New Zealand, reports that his hagwon failed to provide a fan for his apartment during the summer months, due to the potential risk of fatality.
Female teacher, 31, Canada, reports mental suffering and anguish over the fact that her students refuse to believe that Quebec “has 4 seasons just like Korea.”
Yuppers, all of the above look like real, honest-to-God complaints from the STFU crowd. I read that silly piece of dribble in the Times, too. I remember thinking that THAT person needed to just go home where he could annoy his family, rather than the rest of us. Then I realized, it was probably his family that sent him to Korea, just so they could have a break….
Did you get the number of the Irish girl?
Some one in the ministry of education or immigration needs to change the visa system for teachers. If I wanted to work in the states I would have to provide a criminal background check; heck if I wanted to at a school in my own country I would have to do that.
I don’t think it even costs money.
I have met so many clowns in this country that have criminal backgrounds. Assault, drunk driving, etc., it is only a matter of time before they get a real screw up in this country.
Koreans are too friendly; they let anyone in this country.
As for the education system they need to seriously revamp the system. It is a colossal waste of money.
I wonder if our dear Mr. Blockie would support this same “fully staffed, full time bureau” investigating all, and I mean all, complaints by hagwon owners against English teachers in their employment. So long as we’re cracking down, let’s sweep the trash out on both sides, shall we?
I’m sure Blockie is clean, but some of his compatriots in the hagwon racket may see this crackdown come back to haunt them. You never know what the human rights commission may do with complaints from hagwon owners about rampant illegal private lessons, fake degrees, underqualified teachers, illegal drug use, improper student-teacher relations, breaking contracts with midnight runs, teachers showing up to work hung over or intoxicated, and a whole host of other problems that plague the teacher end of the industry.
Best be careful when asking for the light of justice to shine under the hagwon rug. You may not like everything they find.
Brendon, why hold back–why not tell us how you really feel?
Good point–just what we need, another whinging English teacher. I was at a certain large green-hued gathering last evening when an Irish lass bitched about getting paid W100,000 less a month than the “damned Americans” (and Canucks, too, it turned out) at her hagwon. I thought better of explaining free market economics to the “abused” chick and went back to sipping my Guinness (plus, I think a small violin was already being played on stage).
OT–Korea down 4-0 at the top of the 7th. I can’t wait for the excuses:
“We beat the evil Japs twice already. Why should we have to beat them three times? With the complicated tournament system, the Americans conspired to keep us down. Evil American bastards.”
To be fair though, it IS a horrible system.
i was actually hoping for a close game.
won by a controversial japanese home run that was actually foul.
by ichiro.
with the erroneous home run call made by bob davidson.
it would’ve made ohno look like child’s play.
i imagine all arizona, boston, and colorado fans are secretly laughing to themselves…knowing that the koreans are finally feeling the sting of what it’s like to rely on byung hyun kim as your closer.
It looks like the party is over for Korea. Good Pitching, Good D, but no bats other then one or two other guys. It’s too bad they won all the games except one and they get to go home. Still team Korea doesn’t have to hang their heads, they played well until today. In baseball, there is what we call the odds. It’s difficult to win 7 games in a row in a championship, and beat a good team 3 times. The odds caught up to them. As for Japan, I guess credit to Sadahara Oh, third time reveals the truth, Japan get to say their baseball is superior.
I was surprised why the Korean manager decided to pull Seo. He was pitching great.
Ouch– I was just such an English teacher back in 1995. The boss cut me off from my twelfth month of work when he found out I wasn’t planning on renewing the contract. He called up my adjoshi and screamed that my mother, who’s married to a Caucasian, was “a foreigner’s whore” (yang-gal-bo). At that point, I got mad and decided I was going to sue, since several thousand dollars were involved and I wasn’t about to let that sort of remark slide. I wanted to hurt the fucker. Not only did I sue, I also wrote an article titled “Labor Pains” that appeared in the June 15, 1995 edition of the Korea Herald. The Times didn’t print my letter when I submitted it to them.
My boss apparently screamed at the Herald next. The paper printed a retraction that appeared in a little “corrections” box on (I think) the op-ed page a few days later. The boss followed this up by suing me for libel. I was brought before a public prosecutor and told to apologize personally to the boss (who was there in the room). The prosecutor privately told my Korean buddy (who was helping me muck through the particulars of both suits) that he, too, thought my boss was an asshole. The libel suit was dropped. Over a year later, I won my money in superior court (go-deung beop-weon), a third of which went to our useless Korean lawyer as his contingency fee.
It’s true that English teachers who arrive in Korea unprepared for the harsh realities of Korean business can be charged with negligent stupidity, especially these days, when information about the pitfalls of English teaching is so readily available. But it’s also true that many teachers feel burned because they bring along their home-country assumptions about good faith and fair play. Do we castigate the naive for being naive? I don’t know the answer to that, but I suspect it comes down to one’s own personality: some folks think naive = stupid, while others think naive = having some integrity.
The other end of the spectrum– English teachers who learn the dark, hagwonic realities and routinely use the system to their own advantage– has already been covered by other commenters on this blog. Many of us have done our share of illegal teaching, a lot of us because we came here young and stupid and unable to play the system: we’ve been making up for our innocence ever since. Which extreme is better– clueless naivete or radical cynicism? If the naive teacher is to be chastised for not understanding the system, is the cynical teacher to be praised for having mastered the system?
Therein lies the problem: the LEGAL answer is that a person should work within the bounds of Korean law. The ugly reality, though, is that you occasionally have to get loud and obnoxious and fight for what’s yours, up to and including publishing articles that might embarrass your bosses, and quite possibly making up your losses by teaching on the side.
Personally, I took great pleasure in writing the article I wrote. I even took time to mention the boss’s obvious toupee; it was fun to see that he was no longer wearing it when we faced off in court.
Kevin
As a Diamondbacks fan, I’m not “secretly laughing to myself,” I’m laughing out loud. The Chokemeister (aka Byung Hung Kim) strikes again! And smiles his smug smile when another homer sails over the wall…
“To be fair though, it IS a horrible system.” True, but everybody signed up to the same flawed system. I don’t want to hear any excuses about it.
For once the bulk of the commenters are more civil than the writer of the post. I’ve enjoyed some of Brendon’s pieces before, so this one surprised me. I fail to see why he should string together his acid-laced diatribes of invective against someone unhappy with the fraud that is endemic to the hagwon system. It must be a lawyer thing…
I also fail to see what logic exists in turning a blind eye to a wrong because some greater wrong exists in the same country. Brendon needs to pipe down, come off his lofty perch, and maybe go back to school, where he could take an introductory course in logic. He ought to follow that up with a course in ethics. I’m not suggesting that Brendon is acting unethically, but I do think he clearly exhibits a lack of understanding of ethics in this post.
Finally, Brendon shouldn’t read the English papers here in Seoul if they get his knickers in such a knot; I certainly don’t read them. I DO read the Marmot’s Hole regularly, but if more surly, aggressive and pointless material like this gets posted, I won’t continue to drop by much longer.
I have no problem with fans (read: Korean fans) complaining that the system sucked, as long as the “woe are we” and “it’s the Americans’ fault” remarks are left out of it.
If you could, relocate the baseball discussion to the post above.
Brockie writes: ‘There is something incongruous about being a native-speaking English-language teacher in South Korea.
Arguably, because they are university educated from essentially affluent, middle-class backgrounds, and relatively well paid, they are capable of handling employment problems when and if they arise.’
There is indeed something incongruous about being an English teacher in Korea – one need have no practical or academic experience in teaching to become one. What can be galling, to any who have taken the pains to educate themselves to job of teaching, is that in most cases they are simply lumped together with the unskilled and uneducated.
Brockie’s arguement supports this idea: ‘because they are university educated from essentially affluent, middle-class backgrounds,’ they qualify to be ‘teachers’ in the ROK, when in reality they are simply university graduates tasked to do a job for which they have no training (nor, in some cases, skill). Further, most who work privately as ‘teachers’ – where clients’ expectations for skills-development are often greater – are from this same pool. No wonder, then, that opinions regarding teachers are low, for what precisely is a teacher’s worth, when anyone can be one?
I have bought and sold shares, and have assisted my relatives in doing the same, yet I do not consider myself to be a broker. I once removed a painful corn from my foot, when a doctor had been unable to do so, but I haven’t taken to using the title of ‘doctor’ myself. Likewise, these people are not ‘teachers’, although some may be able to teach (and, possibly, teach well); many are simply acting in the role of conversation partner, entertainer or babysitter.
The original post is nothing more than an “I am better than you” bunch of crap directed at teachers. Some deserve it some don’t.
Oh yeah. All lawyers are money hungry assholes with a distorted view of right and wrong.
That game is not hard to play as it does not take much creativity to pull steroetypes out of your ass. Doesn’t really accomplish much either.
On another note, regarding the importance of the problems of the teacher, it reminds me of a comment I saw the one and only time I looked at ohmycrap international…it went sometihng like this….
How can you even consider that as being important when there is a war in Iraq?!?
NathanB alluded to this fact above as well – just because you deem it a trivial problem does not make it so for the rest of the world.
Abuse of English teachers by hagwon owners is not a trivial problem. In fact, it’s heartbreaking to see the same story again and again and again. Especially when it’s one that is entirely predictable and avoidable.
The rate of perfidy done to English teachers in Korea is probably one out of every five contracts (see that survey on Dave’s ESL where 20% of the teachers hate it here?). If you take those odds, good luck to you. But don’t expect sympathy when there are so many warnings available. It’s like swimming in the shark tank and damning Sea World when you get bit.
As for “money hungry assholes”, well, touché. But don’t you work in “financial services”?
You assume perfect information. That is a pretty hefty assumption.
Yeah, but what would you know. You’re a Duke fan.
i would say it’s more like playing with a bee hive and damning the beekeeper when you get stung. sure it may hurt for a few minutes, but the overall damage is pretty minimal.
and then after you get stung, you write your local paper and exaggerate as if your little bitty bee sting was just like swimming in a shark tank and you act as if you got both your legs and arms bit off, when in fact it was nothing of the sort. and worse, you go on to compare yourself and your condition to people who actually are swimming in shark tanks (prostitutes and 3rd world laborers) and who actually are getting arms and legs bit off (like being regularly physically abused, maimed, and killed in factory accidents, or held as sex slaves, abused as captives in sub-human conditions) and are in much, much more severe danger than you are.
i certainly sympathize with kevin or any other teachers who are mistreated or cheated by their hagwons. what i do not sympathize with, and what i will openly mock and disdain, are people like the jackass who wrote the korea times letter, who claim that contract violations and arguments about bonuses are in any way, shape, or form “human rights violations” on the level of 3rd world laborers, sex slaves, or those otherwise trafficked like property by criminals.
if you want to raise the issue of problems in the hagwons, fine. it’s an issue that deserves publicity and more awareness. just don’t fucking exaggerate your situation when you do it. you’re fucking english teachers, paid to come here, with free accommodations, and paid quite well to speak your native language in generally very good conditions. don’t insult real victims by lumping yourself and your relatively petty problems in with their very real hardships that are very often life or death issues.
and if you do, expect to be ridiculed for it.
While in the past Mr. Carr has treated me like shit, I agree with him 100 percent on this one.
Only come to Korea to teach at a hagwon if you’re crazy or extremely adventurous (and flexable) and don’t care so much about the money.
Don’t come here to teach for money.
You will be miserable.
Shelton, we (it’s not just me, you know) don’t treat you like shit. I personally criticize your writing heavily — which it deserves, as there is such a desperate need for approval throughout that it’s tedious to read. Stop seeking approval and you just might get it. I think you know this. At least, on your blog you make reference to frequently annoying people with your self-described cloying manner.
That’s my opinion.
It’s not changed by what you wrote.
And I can’t help but find it amusing that you (in the plural since, don’tcha know) bitch, moan all but hunt me down and hack me to death for where I place a comma…but you keep reading my stuff only to complain about it.
Must…not…become…the Bitter Expat….
Yes. I am in a bad mood.
I definitely disagree with “Only come to Korea to teach at a hagwon if you’re crazy or extremely adventurous (and flexable) and don’t care so much about the money.”
Despite some problems that could be better, I heartily disagree. Korea’s a great place to make lot of money for doing something that comes naturally for English speaking people. 2 million a month, free housing and save $10,000 at the end of the year – how many great jobs are out there that offer that kind of perks for recent university graduates? Good things far weigh the negatives.
shelton,
i haven’t seen you ever “treated like shit” here unless you are using that term in its loosest sense. the criticism has been heavy at times albeit reasonable considering the writing you consistently churn out.
by the way, it’s “flexible”, not “flexable.”
I agree one hundred percent with NathanB. I usually enjoy the posting on this blog. I’ve always found it fair and balanced. Brendon Carr should take note. I’m sure there are quite a few tabloids in England who’d love to have him, but here’s hoping the Marmot’s Hole has seen the last of him.
Paranoia, self-destroya
(don’tcha know)
Mr. Bumgarner, comma placement is the least of your concerns. Please don’t buy alcohol for minors again, OK?
I can never figure out how much of all this is real and how much is people being extremely disingenuous. Do you guys really lack any sense of irony at all?
Is it humanly possible to lack a sense of irony?
Let me clue you in, guys — I often write figuratively, wryly and ironically. That would mean you can’t always take what I write a face value. That’s just my writing style. So when am I being straight faced? That is for you to figure out.
Self-delusion, much confusion.
Only come to Korea to teach at a hagwon if you’re crazy or extremely adventurous (and flexible) and don’t care so much about the money.
Fixed.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I could win a gold medal in running and you guys would focus on if my socked matched or not.
I stand by that bit. The reason I say that is that too often people come here to teach for money and don’t think about issues like cultural differences or if they even like kids. If you come here for money, then you’ll be so busy worrying about making money that you will lose sight of what horrible things your Korean co-workers are saying about you in Korean. Not to mention you’ll be miserable ’cause you have to put up with kids all day.
I could win a gold medal in running and you guys would focus on if my socks matched or not.
sigh
The word “pathos” comes to mind rather than irony, Mr. Bumgarner. Just knock off buying booze for minors, if that’s not too much to ask.
Or you could trip and fall before the finish line and we’d laugh at that before laughing at your socks.
michael, I not still beating my wife, thank you very much.
Not that I’m married.
yes, yes, I won’t buy anyone who isn’t at least 20 or whatever booze in the future. I’ll let them spend their $1 to get it on their own in the future.
You guys are a hoot.
I should write a rap song from some of your comments. Or at least a poem.
I demand an answer
Just knock off buying booze for minors, if that’s not too much to ask.
Self-delusion, much confusion.
by the way, it’s “flexible”, not “flexable.”
I personally criticize your writing heavily — which it deserves, as there is such a desperate need for approval throughout that it’s tedious to read.
hit me, in the hot tub!
That’s not a very good rap song. It doesn’t rhyme. And if it’s a poem, it’s not very metrical (except the last line).
(Okay, I’ll stop for now.)
Shelton Bumgarner — the Jeffrey Miller for a New Generation
Shelton, people criticize your writing because they don’t like it. You tell readers of this blog to ‘figure out’ what you intend in your writing, but in case you haven’t yet learned, people here communicate in a much more straightforward manner – they simply state what they think, feel or believe. This may be one reason why you fail to connect with readers here.
Now, of course, they criticize you for an entirely different reason.
Back on the block from the depths of misery,
Shelton Bumgarner and his funky eye-run-knee,
Went solo for a while, but still got game,
Muthafucka wry and sly, don’t be callin’ him lame…
It’s Bumgarner’s yizzear to fuck shit up,
knockin’ back soju wid a teen and a cup.
Beat on the brat
Beat on the brat
Beat on the brat with a baseball bat
Oh yeah, oh yeah, uh- oh
What can you do?
What can you do?
With a brat like this always on your back
What can you do? (lose? )
michael,
I nearly pissed myself. Good stuff.
Thanks man
Really don’t want to pick on Mr. Bumgarner, he just seems to pin a “kick me” sign on everything he posts. He should listen to Mr. Carr, it’s not often you get get good advice from a lawyer for free.
dogbertt,
Are you talking about Jeffrey Miller the poet? Or the Jeffrey Miller who was shot in the face at Kent State?
Leave poor Shelton alone.
I would really like to keep the thread on topic(s), which seem to have degenerated from (i) Chris Brockie, the author of the Korea Times piece, sucks because he hilariously equates his contract dispute with human rights violations; to (ii) English teachers suck; to (iii) Brendon Carr is an acid-tongued meanie (not to mention greedy and heartless) and, therefore, sucks; and now finally to (iv) Shelton Bumgarner sucks (come on, we knew that already).
Pick one of the first three. Leave Shelton out of this. It’s just not sporting.
Neither. I was referring to this fellow:
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/200603/kt2006031416450254200.htm
Butthead: Check it out. It’s that Kaopectate–
Beavis: Oh yeah, that stuff is terrible. It like is expensive, and tastes terrible, and it doesn’t work. It says it’s for diarrhea, and I drank a whole bottle, but I never got diarrhea–
Butthead: Beavis–
Beavis: Then a week later, this brick pooped out of my butt. It was all hard and black. I can show it to you if you want.
Butthead: You still have it?
Beavis: Sure. I keep it in my sock drawer.
Butthead: Beavis, you’re just joking right?
Beavis: Ummmm yeah I mean ummmm no.
Butthead: Beavis, I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t hear any of this.
i kind of think of shelton as the urkel of the “hole.” and i’m referring to this fellow:
http://www.thegreenhead.com/watercooler/images/urkel_proof_1.jpg
Initially, I was puzzled by Marmot’s choice of Shelton as guest blogger, but I’ve come to enjoy reading the comments that each of his posts quickly produces, and now respect the entertainment value that a good Shelton post can provide. I say: Bumgarner 4evah!
I guess many people here enjoy brendon’s post for the primary reason that it is rude and obnoxious, and directed at an easy target. That’s fine. Obviously there are many English teachers here in Korea who are disturbingly naive, to the point of being disturbingly dumb. And apparently it is our right to make fun of them.
But as others have pointed out, that doesn’t necessarily qualify them for our scorn. Brockie deserves scorn becuase he’s an uninformed person who writes as if he knows something. Worse, his prescription is asinine. This always rankles the lifers here in Korea. They always want to lord their worldly Korean experience over the newbies. It makes them feel superior. (Right, Brendon?)
But english teachers are not an amorphous mass. There are people who do enjoy their lives here as teachers (Jeffrey Miller is an idiot but he clearly loves his work. Is he an asshole?). There are others, such as myself, who started as a teacher and found other things to do that keep them in the country.
My point is that if you somehow get off on trashing english teachers for the sake of trashing english teachers and the fact that it gives you comfort because you are not one, then you’re the asshole.
Seriously, Mr. Bumgarner has a distinctive personality that’s evident in what he writes, although it’s obscured by the sloppiness of his writing. If he becomes disciplined, reigns in the allusions and structures his writing better, he could be an engaging writer.
I don’t get off on trashing English teachers. I don’t even trash English teachers (it would be better if you reacted to what I actually wrote, instead of some imaginary insults stemming from your own experiences). Sometimes I do wonder about their reading comprehension, though. The only thing in the original post which could be taken as a generalized “slam” on English teachers as a group is my use of the word “dummy” in addressing the English teachers who do determine to come to Korea against all advice. It’s not a secret that an unusually large number of English teachers get the screw put to them here in Korea by hagwon owners.
Like Jeff Harrison, I *am* sick of the numerous random phone calls I get from English teachers seeking help. (Almost always free help, I note.) Most are nice people, but generally dumb as a box of hair. (Okay, now that’s a slam, but take note I’m only describing the ones who call me…)
English-teacher “clients” calling from the Embassy’s list of lawyers can be recognized almost immediately by the unprofessional way they interact with me on the phone on that first call: They always start with “um, um…”, don’t give me their names, instead launching immediately into an interminable rambling description of their entire history with the perfidious hagwon owner. I answer all calls with “This is Brendon Carr speaking.” How often do you think the English teachers respond with “Can I speak with Brendon Carr?” or “Is this Brendon Carr?” Still, I listen, because believe it or not I want to help people who are suffering.
The problem in Korea — a problem not of my making — is that there usually is no meaningful private remedy for what’s happened. And since state action to enforce rights depends on the willingness of the state to take action in the first place, and the Korean state is quite ambivalent about whether it’s proper to use state power to benefit foreigners, where there are no private remedies and the state refuses to act — that means nothing can be done to help the wronged English teacher.
I don’t like that fact, don’t approve of it, and am generally frustrated that I am expected to magically cure the situation for random foreigners who ring me up and can’t pay me. The Embassy is as powerless as me, except that the nice folks there are also bound by their government employment not to be so frank as I can be.
The best remedy for unremediable suffering is PREVENTION. Hence, I say, again and again, don’t come to Korea to teach English!
The funny thing is that a Bumgarner post on Marmot’s does indeed become and endless spring of amusement and satire, but on Bumgarner’s own blog, the only harvest is of cobwebs.
As long as Korea allows the hakwons to operate virtually unregulated it gets the teachers it deserves.
Gee, Brendon. I didn’t realize you had so much pain and discomfort in your life from all these hapless teachers. if you had just said that upfront, then we would have known what was really bothering you. and here i thought you were just being kind with all that advice to stay away from teaching jobs here in Korea. now i realize you have an axe to grind. and it’s ok, i understand you. we all have axes to grind, don’t we? (except for the teachers, those idiots).
I jumped past most of the comments to post this now and will skim later.
I stopped at CM’s comment at something like, “So, are you saying if people get screwed out of a contract, they shouldn’t complain?”
Yeah. That’s about it. That’s what I wanted to say on the blog (linked to as part of the Shut the Fuck Up crowd).
The amount of utter disdain — at times like this pretty much clear banal hatred — of the English language instructors from rich Western industrial nations is large – especially if you are American.
One of the most interesting aspects is how much of the hatred is found in that very same group. It is the “Gee. Everybody is an asshole, but me…” syndrome.
Maybe its biggest in the late first year and perhaps 2nd year ESL instructors, but it comes out regularly in the longer time expats — especially those who have either moved onto better things from the hakwon industry or the military or started out in a better situation.
The “shut the fuck” attitude describes it best. Go home and flip some burgers, loser. If you weren’t such a dumb fuck, you wouldn’t have come here — or more commonly — you would have found the right school or university and avoided that. It’s your own fault, ass. You put yourself in the situation, dickhead. Go crying back home to your mother, loser.
And God help you if you mention how people don’t throw heaping piles of abuse onto others abused — like some of the immigrants I met who lived in a shitty dorm in Songnam.
Wow. What an asswipe loser you must be. Stupid. Your white. Your from the US or Canada. You have a degree. You aren’t a sex slave. So shut the fuck up. If you weren’t such a loser just trying to get laid when you couldn’t buy a date back home, stupid, you wouldn’t have put yourself in that situation to begin with.
I really shouldn’t have even started typing this. It is a complete waste of time.
And this article (and the shut the fuck response generated by so many who have been in Korea a good while and have learned the good and the bad and the ugly —– and have decided the ESL teachers and others deserve even more rebuking than before they ever knew about Korea) —-
—– has hit at a time when my desire to listen has gotten pretty low.
There really is no point in putting up a site like http://www.usinkorea.org. I started it in 2002 out of desperation while back in Korea for some langauge study and research.
I guess I was a dumb fuck then too……right?
I knew what Korea was about. I was one of the ignorant burger flippers who stayed through all the shit for 4 years (because I found enough to make it worthwhile even though I never learned to hate the others who came).
In 2002, I knew all that, but like the loser some of us are, I came back, and had so much fun several times on public transportation…….
…I put myself in that situation too…..I knew what the subway and train stations could be like. I was just asking for it……
But, why keep it going now?
For about 2 weeks or so, I’ve hardly read the Korean papers. I haven’t blogged about Korea in awhile really.
And this stuff about the English instructor losers who deserved the buttfucking they got might do the trick…..
My wife has been wanting me to stop the anti-US / USFK stuff for some time.
Nobody in the US really cares. Why should they care? The college educated crowd usually thinks of soldiers about the same say yall think of ESL instructors in Korea…..bunch of losers and assholes who couldn’t get a real job —– bunch of white trailor trash and ghetto homeboys…….
…..It’s all a big waste of time….
“Ouch– I was just such an English teacher back in 1995. The boss cut me off from my twelfth month of work when he found out I wasn’t planning on renewing the contract. He called up my adjoshi and screamed that my mother, who’s married to a Caucasian, was “a foreigner’s whore” (yang-gal-bo). At that point, I got mad and decided I was going to sue, since several thousand dollars were involved and I wasn’t about to let that sort of remark slide. I wanted to hurt the fucker. Not only did I sue, I also wrote an article titled “Labor Pains” that appeared in the June 15, 1995 edition of the Korea Herald. The Times didn’t print my letter when I submitted it to them.”
Oh. I’m sure you could have done something different. You see, Korea has 5,000 years of history. You can’t come in here and bring your values. It is their culture. You should understand why the man said that about your mother. I’m sure you aggravated the sitaution to begin with.
And what the fuck are you doing in Korea anyway, you half a Kyopo. You went to Georgetwon, right? If you were much of anything, you’d have found a good job in the US. Obviously you couldn’t hack it there and now just do nothing but simper and whine and do a lot of things to be an embarrassment to mankind, much less Americans. I mean, look at all that childish stuff about oogling women. I bet your just like all those other Fonzy wantabees who come to Korea looking to get laid because you couldn’t get any back home because your too fat and dumpy and have bad hair and …..
blah blah blah blah….
(I’m sure Bighominid will understand my point —- I like your site — and I’m sure you’ve heard things very similar to this ———- well……geez……you’ve got it all in this thread…….)
Stick around Bighominid. Stay in Korea another 2 or 3 years ——- and you’ll learn to hate those people too….
One day you’ll find yourself talking about how the biggest complaint any of those losers have is the secretary not ordering lunch for them….
(I guess I haven’t gotten cynical enough —– I never got to where I hated those people….and I better stop while I’m still ahead….)
See,
You need to go to Mexico first and then learn how to swim, then, it would take only five minutes.
Maybe, this is why we have so many Illegals in this Country. Too much hassle.
I meant to write this comment up yesterday to explain why I used the type of langauge I did in the previous two, but I got caught up in other things, and I wanted to take the time to write it out fairly clearly. — because there was a point to the vulgarity.
After Brendan sent me an email about the comment, I replied with most of what follows below.
I want to add the basic idea and what led it to pop into my mind while reading the orignial post.
Brendan’s title was cheeky and had STFU.
It reminded me of how Marmot recently said he had cleaned his language up for readers (and seems to have decided to journalisticize his thoughts too….again, just curious about that).
My point in using the vulgarity in the two comments was — why not type “Shut The Fuck Up” out?
Futher explanation to follow:
Here is the bulk of the email I sent Brendan:
If this conversation were done in public — like in a bar — it would not come off nearly as angry.
Much of it was making a small (or key) point —- that the ESL Instructor issue isn’t discussed in a vaccum.
I skimmed the comments fairly quickly, but I noticed in one where someone said your post was rather bitter or harsh or so on, and you came back saying that you were not slamming the ESL people as a whole and he should bother to read the comment more carefully.
It should be obvious from the amount of heat your post generated — on both sides — that the conversation isn’t without a very clear and well known background in the expat community.
That is why Ruminations in Korea had his blood start to boil —– thinking about the ESL instructors.
And why someone like me or Big Hominid and others took issue with it as a slam.
But, to the side issue about the language —— what I was trying to do was put the conversation in the proper context —–
For example —- You put in the title — STFU —
My point in being so bitter-sounding and liberal use of foul language was trying to make this point —
Why not write out “Shut the fuck up”?
That thought —- shut the fuck up — is EXACTLY the tone and manner in which this conversation takes place among the expats in person —
Most of the people heaping incredible amounts of abuse on the ESL people who complain or just on them in general.
And the amazing part is it is often other ESL instructors (especially 2nd year or later ones) who do the kicking while someone is down.
Or, in the minority, people like me who stuck it out in Korea for good reasons who nonetheless got ass-reamed a couple of times — who managed to not hate Korea or the large chunk of the Western expat community in Korea — the ESL instructors.
The reason I chose the language I did in the comments — and the reason at one moment I was putting in my own thoughts and the next mimicing someone else bashing the ESL instructors was —— that language fits how people think about the subject.
So, in this reply, I have chosen to omit pretty much all the harsh rhetoric and such that swirls around the topic.
It is nicer and is slightly closer to how I feel about the topic ——– because it is a hopeless mess with both sides so entrenched in their opinion and the opinions so strongly held —– if you pick at the scabs —————– it is better to never even bring the subject up.
Kind of like abortion. A topic I haven’t discussed with anybody since 11th grade. (And if you can find anyone who knows me well who can tell you which side of that DMZ I am on, I would be utterly amazed).
Anyway, I should have made a note explaining why I used the language I did in the comment.
I did a half-assed job of it with the stuff about Big Hominid.
And what I mean is —– most of the stuff I wrote on it is EXACTLY the kind of stuff you hear in the expat community that I was around.
The attack on Kyopos —– nothing I’ve ever said or thought about that group of expats — but boy have I heard in person and read plenty of it from other expats over the years.
I think Ruminiations in Korea had something about how most of the ESL instructors had unkept hair and wore ragged clothes and embarrased their fellow countrymen.
So, I mimiced the comments pointed at Big Hominid – who says similar things about himself —- but in a COMPLETLEY different way —– and with a completely different meaning.
And that was my point. Why write out a message like this very one I’m typing now — so generic and nice sounding — when the discussions on the topic at hand —- are 99% bitter and angry and heated – on both sides — with the majority loving to despise the ESL crew?
Why pretend the contempt isn’t there?
Or, probably more to a point, why be suprised when someone takes something like this as a slam at the ESL Instructors as a generic group of losers?
The same thing was done with the stuff in the comment about Big Hominid with the idea most male ESL instructors just came to get laid easily —– I like BIg Hominid’s sense of humor and love his art work —— but anybody who has been in Korea for any significant length of time and has listened to the people talk about the other expats (GIs or ESL Instructors primarily) would easily recognize how in a discussion of loser ESL instructors —– what makes Big Hominid’s blog very entertaining —– would be used to mock and belittle all ESL instructors as a group.
And the same people enjoying a good slam on the ESL losers would never stop to think that their buddy Big Hominid is one of those guys…..He’s one of the good ones…you see………….
That is what this discussion is all about.
It is slaming and kicking and nasty.
It has been going on for years.
And it isn’t going to change.
It’s a sewer.
And I don’t mean the hakwon industry.
That is a sewer too.
I mean this issue inside the pretty much isolated and often bitter Western expat community in Korea.
Go out with a bunch of them and mention GIs or ESL Losers — and watch the fireworks that must serve some purpose somehow……
usinkorea,
you’re an idiot.
Some how, that doesn’t faze me.
One other point I wanted to make.
One of the frequent justifications for gloating over the abuse hakwon workers face is mentioning of how many illegal ESL instructors there are.
I can’t speak for the hakwon industry today, because I haven’t been around it in several years, but when I was in it for several years, that justification didn’t fit the few illegal workers I met.
In fact, the opposite seemed true.
The illegal workers were one of the few who seemed to have figured out how to work the system to their advantage.
One of the ones I met and got to know (a good guy) said he always asks expats who have been in country for more than a year why they still toil in hakwon hell rather than go illegal.
These guys do a lot of illegal private classes — which means much bigger money than what hakwon workers make.
They also often get paid up front for a month or two weeks or how ever much the student wants to pay, so they don’t have to worry about the bad hakwon habit of finding many deductions in your pay or withholding your pay — especially your last month’s pay and your required by law year end bonus (like Big Hominid mentioned).
And a couple of the illegals brought into hakwons I worked at did the same there. They forced the hakwons to pay them up front. Or, in another case when one got screwed around with for some of his pay, he started reading a newspaper for his class hours. — That is something I could never do. The students or their parents pay good money for those classes. It isn’t their fault (mainly) that hakwon owners are often bastards. — but a teacher who wants to teach is often caught between a rock and a hard place. Sometimes, it seems like the newspaper reader has figured it out right — if they are only going to give him a percentage of his pay, do a percentage of the work.
Best of all, if these illegal workers are doing hakwon hours, and the hakwons start playing with them, they can do what is virtually impossible — simply leave. Go to another place.
And if they get into something with one of the hakwon owner types who will call immigration or something like that, they can relocate to another city.
These few illegal teachers I met had their own apartments —- much better than the free one I used (but since it was free, I didn’t complain much).
And doing this illegal work, they were able to save up a good amount of cash and could afford to relocate at will or could take a small hit if they did lose some wages from a hakwon or private lesson person.
From my experience, the ESL workers that do fit much of what you hear in discussions like this one — who are doing a lot of the serious whining — are ones who tried to do it legally and follow the rules.
Maybe all of these people are idiots for having come to Korea to begin with given the reputation it has.
I still think it is a pile of shit to say they deserve it, and I think it should be stated that way.
But, if you want to call them idiots, it is no big deal to me.
But, I don’t think bringing in the fact there are so many illegal ESl workers ———– can be used as a justification for bashing the hakwon workers who get screwed.
The illegal workers take a much, much smaller beating from the hakwon owners, because they have figured out how to minimize the risks (and maximize the profits).
One late comment on this topic.
I often don’t mind admitting when I’ve been a jerk or an idiot (when I realize it).
Like with the short comment I made about Lankov a couple of weeks ago. Marmot and others were right to beat me about the head with it, because I was an ass.
But, I don’t apologize for the two comments above about the ESL worker topic and how it plays out in the expat community.
Right or wrong (which will depend on who the reader is) I am convinced the reason was justified and actually proper given how many times I’ve listened to exactly that kind of nastiness or read it at places like Dave’s ESL Cafe or elsewhere.
It’s much the same with the GI and the history of the US-SK relationship in the expat community in Korea.
Why sugarcoat it? Why pretend that isn’t how everybody thinks and frequently talks about these topics.
Everything I wrote in those two comments are things I’ve heard many times in the expat community —– and not from just a bunch of bad people.
That level of thought is the norm.
As an expat in Korea myself, and after having my own share of experience living here, good and bad, for four years (and counting), all I can say is : don’t get mad, get even.
(starts wearing flamesuit on)
……so, anybody did get the number of that Irish girl?
You must log in to post a comment.
{ 5 trackbacks }