Choo Kyu Ho, the Commissioner of the Korea Immigration Service, would like us all to know that Korea is eager to embrace foreigners.
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
In general, I liked what he wrote, but wondered about this:
Excuse me, Commissioner, but how is it that, as you say, many have questionable qualifications and backgrounds, when you have processed their visa applications?
weird on so many levels. now that someone has explained to him that korea’s (lack of a viable) pension system will implode without immigration he has felt the need to write this.
not sure that “ghettoes” is the most appropriate term to use here.
#1,2
Yeah, I don’t even know where to begin making fun of/criticizing that letter.
“One of the most eye-catching changes in Seoul over the past few years has been the greater number of foreign cars ― many of them top-class ― that roll on its streets alongside domestic Hyundais and Kias.”
What are we? Shiny new status symbols that will be discarded by our employers and friends when a new toy comes out?
Eager to Embrace Foreigners, you say? Then, why does the government continue harassing the parents of Koreans who also hold foreign citizenship by requiring them to get a visa that must be renewed on a yearly basis?
I could go on and on…
since when is homogeneity something to be proud of? Ugh, that whole article gave me the creeps.
I just assumed he meant Russian hookers…
Korea embraces foreigners… Sure, pal, whatever…Why do I get the feeling that an ax is about to drop?
Japan welcomes foreigners too. Which is why they will start fingerprinting, interviewing, and photographing all foreigners entering — and upon exiting the country, beginning Nov 20.
Spread it thin, it’s a big field Mr Choo!
#7,
They’ve been fingerprinting people for years.
I remember a few years ago that Korean raised a stink because Japan was fingerprinting its Korean residents. The irony of it all is that I was fingerprinted by Korean Immigration a few months earlier and had been told that they wouldn’t process my work visa if I protested.
when I protested…sorry.
“Willing to work for less than their Korean counterparts, immigrant workers will help lower labor cost, thereby restoring the price competitiveness of Korean firms’ products.”
And since they aren’t allowed to organize to demand decent wages, they’ll undercut all middle class wages. It’s Wal-Mart economics.
“Many young men who come to teach English at private institutions have questionable qualifications and background.”
Men – you mean to say there are no women of dubious merit?
Good letter but he comes off as old fashioned.
As the Director of our Program I attend the Korean staff meetings and got some news this week via the Department of Education that rattled me. Our Vice-Principal announced that due to increasing number of teachers with questionable backgrounds involved with drugs and possible threats to children the Superintendent wants Principals and those in charge of foreign teachers to start drop-by visits at their homes to photograph and document the foreign teachers’ living practices. I pointed out to my “co-workers” that 1) this seems to be an Immigration Department problem with their standards and 2) when the US decided to electronically fingerprint all visitors – a process my wife goes through that takes 5 seconds – Koreans bemoaned it for being degrading and insensitive. They ignored my comments but one later told me later, “we’d only do this if there were complaints or suspicions”. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was Bush administration policy.
“Koreans may easily erupt in xenophobia and shun foreigners lest they damage our homogeneity or treat them as second-class residents leeching off Korea’s wealth.”
May? Is this guy serious? Even North Korean brothers and sisters are treated like second-class citizens! Choo Kyu Ho should fire his driver, turn off his xcanvas, and get on the bus or subway and live in the Korea that most of us do.
He doesn’t want Koreans to think that foreigners are leeching Korea’s wealth, but he eagerly says that Koreans should exploit foreigners.
“Willing to work for less than their Korean counterparts, immigrant workers will help lower labor cost, thereby restoring the price competitiveness of Korean firms”
#11,
One of my former students told me about how he had run away from home when he was 16 and found himself working in a factory in Pusan alongside many South East Asian migrant workers. He was totally impressed by these men’s work ethics. They taught him how to work, they took care him as if he was one of their own.
Naturally, he was totally appalled to learn that he was earning a considerable amount more than they were per month. One day, he threw caution to the wind and confronted his boss about it, told him that it was unfair to treat these people as inferior workers when they are more productive than many of the Korean workers…He got fired and the migrant workers’ salaries didn’t increase, but I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for him to have done that. Imagine the courage it would take for a Korean teenager to tell an older Korean man that he’s exploiting his workers.
#12,
Yeah, he certainly does. That quote and his reference to Dangun made me wonder if this letter had been written over 10 years ago. I think he doesn’t realize that that sort of writing style went out of fashion with the ‘beepees’.
If they really want to be welcoming to foreigners, Koreans could stop using the word foreigners. Try “immigrants” or “expatriates” for a change.
Very irritating is the idea that us ferinners are here to drain away the ‘national wealth’. So what we give in return is not worth anything or that Koreans just want it on the cheap?
#18,
You should have been here in late 1997, early 1998.
Someguy, actually, I was here at the time and I know it was worse than now.
Ever tried to remit money overseas from Korea in the early 90s?
remit money!?! You mean going to the backroom of the exotic lingerie shop in the ‘ville and changing won for greenbacks that you could carry out in a moneybelt on your next trip to the World.
I remember being told here in 1993 that instead of changing my KRW to USD and taking it back with me, I should be patriotic and spend it here in Korea to support the local economy.
I heard one from a guy that ran a summer English program in the States who would hide slightly less than $10,000 in each kid’s luggage and then retrieve it at the camp in Oregon or wherever. A beautiful scheme on many levels.
Close but no cigar. I’m French and have never been inside a US base or in their neighbourhoods — except It’aewon, of course…
Well they’ve been fingerprinting residents, like in Korea, but from Nov 20 they are fingerprinting VISITORS, every single one of them…
I wonder if Choo, Kyu-ho knows about the time when a foreigner teacher filed a complaint with the Labor Ministry and then was denied an E-2 visa/teaching visa simply for that reason. Later, an Immigration worker tried to negotiate with that same Foreign Teacher to drop the case/complaint against his/her Korean employer in exchange for an E-2 visa?
The teacher thought about it, went back to Immigration the next day and asked the Immigration MAN to put that in writing, the Immigration MAN said…”You can trust me, I’m an official!”
Or, what about the time when a foreign teacher was blacklisted by Immigration simply because a past employer called Immigration on the phone and told them that “Mr/Ms. xxxxx ran away and quit his/her job?” The truth was that the teacher was fired illegally. The statement the employer made was a lie and Immigration knew it, but it didn’t stop them from blacklisting the teacher. Approximately 3 weeks after the employer called Immigration they went to the Labor Ministry to try to convince them that they fired the teacer legally.
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