Suwat said Karr arrived in Bangkok on June 6 from Malaysia to look for a teaching job. It was not clear whether he had gotten a job, the police officer said.
At least JonBenet’s confessed killer wasn’t coming to Korea to teach. Sheesh, we’d never hear the end of THAT, now would we!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Joke if you want, Mr. Bum, but the fact that Korea does not require background checks on English-teaching foreigners is a cause for concern. Molesters are drawn to overseas English teaching because of the anonymity. Koreans don’t require background checks basically because they can’t conceive such a thing to be possible, not living in an open society: Last year I advised a foreign producer of children’s programming on the limited facilities available for background checks and their US lawyer was fairly mortified. It hardly matters anyway, since penalties for child sexual abuse are negligible in Korea and criminal convictions are not part of the public record. Civil judgments are similarly not to be feared.
I share your concern.
Just noticed this and thought about how the local press would have gone nuts if he were coming to Korea instead of Malaysia to teach.
Too late. He’s already taught in Korea.
http://www.job4teacher.com/Candidates/JohnKarr.html
huh oh
Offical cold chill down spine.
second reaction — I always knew expats in Korea were crazy, but….
He’s been to Germany, Netherlands, Singapore, here, there, and everywhere – all teaching young kids. Why just kids? I’m guessing he wasn’t in trouble in any one of those countries?
OK for the record, when the story broke exactly how many of you thought:
Bangkok? I bet he was in Korea at least once!
The other story that caught my attention this morning was about the Korean sex trafficking ring busted in the US. Besides a Reuters report I don’t see anything else about this. Is the Korean media reporting it?? I would be curious about their spin.
i have a hunch they probably will. may take a day or two…but if Miguk goes as nuts as i suspect, this side issue may stoke the flames of “unqualified English teachers” fire yet again
story idea — anybody know anybody who was teaching English in Korea arond the time he was here?
be interesting to see if anybody knew him…
“Is the Korean media reporting it?? I would be curious about their spin.”
Statements like these make me crazy. All you have to do is check and find out yourself, instead of relying strictly on English language papers and chat sites that have their own biases. But here you go.
http://news.media.daum.net/foreign/america/200608/17/nocut/v13712805.html
If that’s not enough for you, check out stories about Korean hookers in Japan/USA, “Ugly Korean” child molestors in Phillipines.
http://www.imbc.com/broad/tv/culture/pd/1496743_1432.html
http://www.imbc.com/broad/tv/culture/pd/1508100_1432.html
Korean police involved in bribary over prostitution case.
http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/society/200608/h2006081717155021980.htm
And you thought Korean news never have any bad things about Korea. That is just an awful perpetual stereotype.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of the K-media with their often overly sensational, poor/negligent investigative fact gathering – which affects Koreans as well, not just foreingers.
Never a truer thing has been said on my blog.
You must log in to post a comment.