When it rains, it pours.
YTN reports that Ansan police have filed for an arrest warrant for a 28-year-old Korean man who is being charged with sexually assaulting six middle school girls in the dormitory of an English camp in Ansan.
The man, who was a teacher at the camp, stands accused of entering the dormitory at around 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning and assaulting/harassing six middle school juniors who were participating in the camp’s six-day, five-night program. He is said to have been drunk at the time.
Anyways, the English camp explained that the teachers’ lodging was temporary in the same building as the student dormitory, and that the incident happened after the teacher in question entered the building following a late night drinking. It also said the teacher has been relieved of his duties.
18 Comments
And you know what? This time, it’s not even a kyopo accused, it’s an honest to God Korean citizen, but the Korean netizens are blaming white Americans anyway for supposedly bringing over a culture of sex with students. It never stops.
OK, SOME of the netizens were blaming white folk. Not all of them. At least one (I didn’t read all of the comments so far) even went as far as to ask other people to keep the discussion on topic.
Regardless, something I have been considering is translating some of the comments I read on Korean online forums as a response to the Kukmin Ilbo’s piece on English Spectrum. You’d have thought that after the workover the Vietnamese press did on Korea after the Chosun Ilbo debacle, the Korean papers would have learned not to run pieces like that. Apparently, the lesson wasn’t learned. So I figure if its OK for Korean dailies to run selective foreign netizen comments to incite ill-will/boost hit counts/etc., I can do the same. It’s not something I want to do—just because a particular paper does something wrong doesn’t make it right for me to do the same—but it is an idea I’m playing around with.
I can’t believe a Korean would do this. This must be a misprint.
I wish you would. I would be glad to help translate some.
But why should any Koreans blame white people (or Americans in general) for an incident where a Korean citizen sexually harassed other Korean citizens? I’m surprised they haven’t figured out yet how to blame us for the recent Park attack. Give ‘em another week.
If you translated and posted the comments sans “id”, I don’t see what the problem is. Maybe someone could enlighten me?
I’d say use your judgement on Korean society on what notes to translate or not.
The internet is a troll’s paradise.
You could look around all types of sites on all issues related to each country and find nimrods who are just sick or just like jerking people’s chains.
–well——-let me put it this way —
what would you get if you attempted to get a handle on the expat community related to Korea by —– 1. Quoting the Korea Herald forum (if it is still up and like the cesspool it became early on — or —- 2. Quoting the comments here?
I’ve used or looked for stuff for the anti-US/USFK site from http://www.voiceofpeople.org or another site, but hardly ever from the comments section where people feel more free to jerk chains and trolls have free access…..
But, then again, if I thought it does capture the sentiment for a sizable chunk of the Korean people or a real demographic —– I’d say use it —– and point out how it fits in.
Anyway……one thing about this English Camp story ——
hasn’t there been a string of big item news the last 4 or 5 months or so about child abuse and rape and about Korea’s need to change - both the mentality in the society related to the victims and accused as well as the court system?
stories like giving out the names of sex offenders and stories of outrage about how some have gotten slaps on the wrist for vile acts?
I can’t read Korean well enough to check out how the Korean press is covering these English camp stories — or the comments sectoins —-
but it does seem like the issues surrounding crimes like this has been a topic of discussion in the society as a whole for some time.
Which is good considering where Korea was at on this subject not so long ago and especially when I first arrived in Korea around 1995 —— where I heard more than once how some house burglarers would rape the wife or daughter in order to prevent the family from reporting the theft, because the family would not want to expose their “shame” to the public —–
which made me think Korean society in that respect probably had a lot of similarities with the US when my mother or grandmother were young.
As for this man, if he did rape these teens, I’d say…..well…….I’d better not say…..
Marmot, you could post some translations of nutizen comments, but I doubt it would be very enlightening. Most of us who live here already know that there are bigots here, as in every other country, so the natterings of StarcraftKim588 are about as representative of Korea as Madhatter_Fan is of San Diegans.
We should not pick on the Koreans. My Sister speaks of discrimination from her home in Brisbane. I can understand some of the reasons why. Spend anytime in Gecko’s in the evening and the answer will present itself.
Do you really want to take his fine blog down to the level of a Kukmon or a Chosun?
Sorry, Kukmin
So this guy responsible for kids was part of a group that went out at night, got drunk, and returned to the premises while drunk? Sounds like a shake-up of management is necessary as well.
C’mon Kushibo. For someone who knows about Korea as much as you do, I’m surprised you’d make such a naive statement. Haven’t you heard about the student (and teacher) drinking on high school trips? The alcohol provided by the teachers, of course. I’m not saying it’s right or excusable, but it’s deeply ingrained in the culture.
This YTN one-liner is so f***ed up that I think this is another fabricated story to incite the anti-English crowd.
The title says, “A teacher in English-only village sexually assaulted students”. Yet, the main story left out all details. There was no rape in the story. Not even hints of sexual touching. The article left out all details.
Why? Because this YTN reporter is cooking up a fabrication. He is riding on the recent incident about sexual touching and writing a fiction. This type of fabrication should be exposed in Korean newspaper business but has rarely been done. Shameful exploitation of human weakness. Sex sells. And, anti-Americanism to boot. Nobody checks or demands the reporter to produce evidences. The reporters have liscence to fabricate!
I am very sure that no Mr. Kim exists and no teacher has entered the dorm and sexually-assaulted students because none of this made into three big newspapers, Chosun, DongA and Joins.
It is a fiction. Forgeddaboutit.
Iceberg wrote:
C’mon Kushibo. For someone who knows about Korea as much as you do, I’m surprised you’d make such a naive statement.
No, I’m not being naïve. Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen different corporate or academic entities which have curtailed or eliminated company- or school-centered drinking activities because of recent changes in attitudes or liability over some incident.
Haven’t you heard about the student (and teacher) drinking on high school trips? The alcohol provided by the teachers, of course. I’m not saying it’s right or excusable, but it’s deeply ingrained in the culture.
With junior high school kids? College, yes (I’ve done my share of M.T.), maybe even high school, but I’ve not heard of that going on between middle school kids and their teachers.
And with this happening at a high-profile institution, yeah, I could see someone coming down on the management of that place and making sure some heads roll.
Baduk wrote:
I am very sure that no Mr. Kim exists
Give me enough time, and I’ll line up six million of them for you.
Agent 95 said:
No, I’m not being naive. Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen different corporate or academic entities which have curtailed or eliminated company- or school-centered drinking activities because of recent changes in attitudes or liability over some incident.
Who are these corporate and academic entities? To be fair, I too have heard of a (very) few companies changing the location of their 회식 일차 from 삼겹살 and 갈비 restaurants to places like Outback and Bennigans; mostly companies with a higher percentage of female employees. But that doesn’t mean that those who want to aren’t still going to bars for 이차 and 삼차. A few organizations are making public proclamations of “changes in policy” (wink, wink). How many of these people have lost their jobs as a result of (strictly) drinking-related incidents? As long as I continue to hear stories straight from the horse’s mouth about employees spending mornings sleeping at their desk, or read stories about presidents of major companies gleefully teaching a conference room full of people how to make 폭탄주, I’ll remain skeptical of these “institutional changes”.
With junior high school kids? College, yes (I’ve done my share of M.T.), maybe even high school, but I’ve not heard of that going on between middle school kids and their teachers.
And with this happening at a high-profile institution, yeah, I could see someone coming down on the management of that place and making sure some heads roll.
Who mentioned teachers drinking with junior high school kids? I was implying that the widely-known practice of teachers providing alcohol to high school students on school trips suggests a cultural mindset that tolerates teachers going out for drinks without their junior high school students. So that I won’t be misunderstood, I want to emphasize that not every high school teacher does this; but more than a few do. What isn’t tolerated is sexual abuse of students, so this is where you and I agree. If the allegations prove to be true, I also expect someone will come down on the management of that place. But because abuse (allegedly) took place, not drinking.
(Btw, the Agent 95 bit was meant to be funny, not snide.)
Iceberg wrote:
Who are these corporate and academic entities?
Because of a working or personal relationship with the people involved, I’m not at liberty to say, but the variety of reasons come from what you state below (a greater number of not just female employees, but also male employees who actually think it’s important to go home to the wife and kids), problems involving an actual incident (e.g., drunk driving and or hospitalization of an employee or student due to alcohol poisoning), managment’s realization that a hungover employee is not an effective employee, sexual harassment or fear of sexual harassment during drinking, etc.
To be fair, I too have heard of a (very) few companies changing the location of their 회식 일차 from 삼겹살 and 갈비 restaurants to places like Outback and Bennigans; I think a walk-through of those places, which, at least in Outback’s case, are proliferating like a virus on a hot day, are a testament to the de-boozing of Korean corporate functions.
mostly companies with a higher percentage of female employees. But that doesn’t mean that those who want to aren’t still going to bars for 이차 and 삼차.
Yeah, but it’s often fewer and fewer companies that do that. One institution I work for hardly even bothers suggesting it because so few people will go. And they almost never get to round three.
The two biggest factors for this institution were (a) a Bennigan’s being built right across the street, and (b) a fear of getting caught at a sobriety checkpoint. It has emboldened the “family men” (and women) to suggest less beer-intensive drinking events.
To be fair, I also know of some places that are doing the opposite. As a reaction to some people and their excuses why they can’t drink, one person I know in a professional school (far outside of Seoul) told me that the head of their student group said, in all seriousness, that the only way you would get away with not drinking until you’re shit-faced (my description, not hers) is if you bring an actual note from the doctor describing why you shouldn’t be drinking.
A few organizations are making public proclamations of “changes in policy” (wink, wink). How many of these people have lost their jobs as a result of (strictly) drinking-related incidents? As long as I continue to hear stories straight from the horse’s mouth about employees spending mornings sleeping at their desk, or read stories about presidents of major companies gleefully teaching a conference room full of people how to make 폭탄주, I’ll remain skeptical of these “institutional changes”.
Well, none of the places I am thinking of would have reason to want their decisions made public, so I don’t think you’d read about it anyway; you’d only know if you were there or somehow associated with them personally.
At any rate, there’s always going to be drinking, there’s always going to be drunk driving, there’s always going to be hungover employees (some who might choose to just go out and drink with old classmates instead), so even if the trend I’m talking about turns into a giant wave, you’d still hear about — and see — people as you describe. If the number of passed-out folks you see sitting or lying on the street in Shinchon or Yŏŭido dropped from 100 to 20, that’d still be 20.
I dunno anything about the corporate world, but speaking
from the Korean government and academic spheres, i agree
with Kushibo here — the heavy-drinking-with-colleagues
culture has dramatically declined in the past decade, for
all the reasons he said.
RE: Baduk’s post doubting the veracity of the rape allegation story. Baduk, I read the Korean media with a suspicious eye, but I believe this story. As a university lecturer, I heard horror stories of sexual harassment. For example, my former boss at Z University forced female PhD candidates and a gyopo teacher to sleep with him in order to get their diplomas/jobs. The women students would run crying to the lone female prof. in the English Dept. and there was nothing she could do for them. A medical professor at X University would try to enter the rooms of young women students on school trips. He would tell the freshmen, “I just want to talk to you. I’m not going to do anything.” The female students were totally grossed out by this man’s behavior and had enough sense not to let him in. This story involves much younger middle school girls. I do not think the man raped six girls. Rather, he probably fondled or attempted to fondle them. That is still a crime. The very first nationally publicized case of sexual harassment was brought against an SNU prof by one of his grad students.
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[...] Gyeonggi-do’s English camps fired back, beginning with what should be completely obvious from both the Seongnam and Ansan sexual assaults—both incidents were allegedly committed by non-native speakers, i.e., Koreans. The Seongnam incident was allegedly committed by a naturalized U.S. citizen who spoke Korean as his first language and was designated a “Korean” instructor [of English] by the camp. The Ansan incident was allegedly committed by a straight-up Korean. Accordingly, the camps explained that while they were quite apologetic for the incidents, to blame them on “unchecked foreigners” was a distortion of the facts (the Korean Teachers Union? Distorting facts? Never!). They also claimed that foreign instructors are examined very closely before being hired. [...]