Two foreigner English teachers will NOT be having a very merry Christmas as they’ve been busted for using drugs, reports Yonhap.
Incheon prosecutors announced today that a 25-year-old Canadian, Mr. A, teaching at an Incheon elementary school had been arrested on charges of not only smoking hash, but smuggling it into the country.
According to prosecutors, Mr. A is suspected of smoking hash on the street (!) near his home in Gyeyang-gu on Dec 10 and 17. Then on Dec 20, he is believed to have received 5.79g of pot in a package mailed to him from Canada. Amazing people still do this.
Meanwhile, also in Incheon, a 35-year-old American, Mr. M, teaching English at an elementary school in Gyeonggi-do was arrested today for doing ecstasy.
According to police, Mr. M allegedly obtained some 500,000 won’s worth of XTC from another American in his 30s whom he happened to meet in Itaewon in October. He subsequently used said product. He is also suspected of smoking pot in his home on Dec 10.
I’d like to think this was all out of despair of the new E-2 visa regulations.
The American also (allegedly) secretly spiked the drink of his coworker and girlfriend, a 28-year-old Ms. Kim, with XTC and made her drink it at a Hongik University area club in late November (who wants to bet she ratted him out?).
Considering how Mr. M supposedly obtained his drugs from another foreigner residing in Korea, police believe other English teachers may be involved, and are expanding their investigation.
Yonhap comments that with a series of busts of English teachers on charges of drug use, it appears the employment and verification system for foreigners teaching at Korean schools must be reexamined.
It notes that while it has become obligatory for foreigners looking to teach here in Korea to submit criminal and health records when they apply for visas, it’s difficult for authorities to learn whether or not English teachers who are already here and working have criminal records.
48 Comments
Parts of this sound really made up. He spiked his gf and coworkers drinks? Give me a fucking break.
Nobody ever spikes my drink. I must not be cool enough. Anyway, here’s the obligatory link to my Korea Law Blog entry on this topic. Apparently it’s evergreen.
Attention, English teachers: Everybody knows — and understands — that you need to be stoned to put up with the nonsense and tedium of that job and life here in Korea. But “everybody” includes Da Po-Po. Don’t trick yourself into believing you can fool those people.
Please, for your own sake: Don’t use drugs while you’re in Korea.
lovely.
the usual exchange with a future spin:
“Hey, foreigner! Merry Christmas!”
(god, leave me alone!)
“Hey, come here!”
(man, what now?)
“I want to thank you for all your hard teaching!”
(dude, real thanks would be making your loser kids behave themselves.)
“You are doing a great job! You are so handsome!”
(go AWAY!)
“Here … pee in this cup or maybe you cannot work here. I don’t know.”
if he had to spike his girlfriends drink to get some p___y
he has bigger problems than deportation!
I personally would like to do a short sprint before booting both of these guys in the balls for providing ammunition for the “All foreigners are trash” crowd.
I’ve always assured Koreans that the foreigners’ crime rate is below the Korean average, but I’m starting to wonder. Anyone have any stats on drug-related arrests?
You’ve been in Korea too long. You’re starting to pick up local English usage.
A measly 6g of pot and a few hits of ecstasy are worth an article?
Seems like the use of yhe drugs dulled their wits rather severely… poor sods just lost their slice of heaven…
Dumbasses!
If you can’t accept the consequences of your actions than don’t do anything that could get you into hot water and then cry about it, legally or otherwise.
#6 - on comparing crime rates.
GI Korea looked at it a while ago.
I wrote this up with a ‘tinyurl’ and it didn’t make it past the filters so here is my second attempt without modifying the url:
http://rokdrop.com/2007/09/24/.....-in-korea/
Robert, you are still calling it XTC? Retro!
“A measly 6g of pot and a few hits of ecstasy are worth an article?”
If the criminal is a foreigner, apparently so. Mind you, if he really did spike someone’s drink, he deserves to get slammed hard. That just isn’t cool.
#13,
What’s not cool is the quasi-absence of articles concerning the arrests of Koreans for the smuggling, production and/or distribution of marijuana and amphetamines and the relative abundance of articles about foreigners being arrested with tiny amounts of these drugs.
A quick search online gives you an article written in 2006 about an aging Korean rocker who got busted in 1975 when the Park Jung Hee made marijuana illegal in order to imprison dissident artists. Question is, are the recent arrests an indication that the old tactic of using marijuana arrests in order to manipulate public opinion against a certain group of people has returned?
I also found an article written in 2005 about an actress contesting her arrest for marijuana possession (no follow-up about whether the courts rule in favor or not of her argument that the law concerning the possession of marijuana is unconstitutional or not).
“teaching English at an elementary school in Gyeonggi-do”
The government was going to exempt those teachers invited by the Minister of Education from the new E2 rules. I wonder if they are going to reconsider now.
28 year old Miss Kim - Spiked drink –Hongik Club.
So much for the guys who said the new E2 rules would never last. Yes it is minuscule amounts of drugs but at the end of the day the press is talking about sex, drugs, and rock’n roll. These topics sell papers. The Korean public was already concerned about the quality of teachers, big stories like these will only make them more so.
These drug stories when it comes to universities or regular schools always have the busts at the end of the semester. Ever notice that? Today is the last day of classes for the k-12 curriculum. Nabbing someone before they are done teaching would be a big inconvenience to the school. If Joe Blow Canuck gets arrested half way into a semester and is not able to finish tests or other duties it would be a pain in the rump to schedule around.
The timing really makes me wonder that the police hold off on arresting someone until after they are done teaching. That way they cause less disturbance and less loss of face at the schools. I hope the police are not doing this as the way the story reads this Mr. M used the drugs to assault someone else.
It’s not correct to state that “the Korean press” doesn’t report drug arrests of Koreans. The English-language Korean press doesn’t regularly make such reports, but the vernacular press is chock-full of reports of all kinds of people — but especially the rich, famous and/or powerful — getting arrested for drug possession and use.
The English-language press, perhaps because its audience is thought to be comprised of a substantial portion of non-Korean speaking foreigners who might not get the message elsewhere, focuses on news of foreigners getting pinched. But that may be a matter of editorial interest.
When I lived in St. Louis, the papers were full of headlines like “Local Man’s Travel Delayed By Tsunami; 100,000 dead, missing in Indonesia”. It’s a matter of the editors’ judgment of who’s interested in what.
Brendon,
What are the most commonly used drugs amongst those locals caught here? My guess would be amphetamines since there is a lot of production/use elswhere in the region.
#16,
Yes, and there is apparently an editorial interest in not damaging Korea’s squeaky clean image and using the arrest of a few foreigners in order to enhance it.
#18
Why not email the journalist who wrote the article? At the end of the story that the Marmot linked there is the email address for the reporter.
Why not complain to him?
I don’t know. I don’t use drugs, and have little interest in reading about the travails of those who do. It doesn’t intersect my personal or professional life. My interests are real estate and the Korean housing bubble, cross-dressing politicians, seamy wife-swapping stories (What? They give her back?!), tales of rich folks’ room-salon debauchery — and the never-ending parade of lies, fraud and embezzlement.
Why am I interested in these things? I blame Japan.
how is it they can bust you for somking pot at some previous time in the past
that is just plane retarded
that is just plane retarded
lol!
Sorry mcnut, you obviously haven’t heard the myriad stories about this- including the Korean salary man, while on a business trip to Amsterdam, partook in a little herbal cultural study. He blogged about it when he got back to Korea and someone tipped off the cops about his blog story. The cops arrested him for “being bad”. It didn’t matter that he did it in a country that was legal.
Yes, it’s retarded, but T.I.K. This is Korea!
Smoke herb or do some X, feel happy, probably pretty lazy and silly= you are a bad, bad person.
Drink soju, get aggressive and violent, express some of those deep seated anger issues they call “han” all over innocent bystanders= that’s just a cultural thing and we should all “understand” and forgive.
T.I.K.
PS- these 2 guys are idiots! When will people learn that they should definitely not be doing drugs here? Some never will!
#19,
I really doubt a letter to a reporter will affect the editorial content of the English language media.
#22,
‘Plane retarded’ must be another way of saying someone is stupidly high.
“My interests are real estate and the housing bubble, cross-dressing politicians, seamy wife-swapping stories, tales of rich folks’ room-salon debauchery — and the never-ending parade of lies, fraud and embezzlement.”
Is that why you learned Korean?
Totally off topic, but…
My first foreign language is Latin, followed by three years of first-year Russian. I joined the Navy to learn Russian, which is of course why I was taught Mandarin. Then, in true Navy fashion, after being taught Mandarin to a high level (strangely, Chinese is hell of a lot easier than Russian), I was stationed in Korea where nobody speaks Mandarin.
I learned Korean originally because I wanted to be able to get around, and eat. (Never did come to like the food, though.) Later I wanted to use the language to meet the local girls. Still later I wanted to be able to read newspapers and professional materials, and to understand what was being said in business meetings. Every day I try to get better with the language. The scandal-sheet newspapers are now one of my preferred vehicles of study, as nobody wants to teach me that essential vocabulary.
I’ve also tried to study Japanese and Arabic. However, Korean is the language easiest to study in the place where I live and is now the one which I can actually use. (I’m no language savant like dda.) If I had it to do over again, I probably would have taken my Mandarin off to PRC in 1993. Or learned Spanish. But hindsight is 20/20. My experience does tend to support the oft-touted thesis that any foreigner interested in Korea must be a dumbass, however.
Korean is a fascinating language — to be frank, Korean is very interesting anthropologically due to its comparatively limited vocabulary and extremely regular grammatical structures. Sejong’s hangul is a marvel, albeit one which was developed quite late in the game. One wonders how these features developed, and what they say about the nature of the people who use such a language.
English, for example, has insanely irregular grammar, crazy (and defective) orthography, an amazing absorptive capacity for new words and ideas, and incredible power to supplant and obliterate other languages. Surely that says something about the tribes that use the English language and the underlying culture that’s communicated by the medium of that language. Did they achieve their current worldwide cultural dominance in spite of their language, or because of it?
What role does the Korean language play in Korea’s place in the world? Despite its many attractive features, Korean is never going to be a “world language” (even though I think Korean is great, there are probably more students of Esperanto — and perhaps Klingon — than there are students of Korean). A monolingual “pure” Korea is probably consigning itself to the wastebin of history.
Mandarin is also pretty interesting — one of the really curious features of Mandarin is how its structures and way of thinking are so similar to English, yet the cultures supported by each language are strikingly different.
Brendon, the official Applied Linguistics party line is that no language could possibly be better than another, and the rise to global eminence of English was fortuitous - English just happened to be in the right place and the right time (due to historical, political and economic factors). But I have never been comfortable with that too clearly PC line, and suspect the peculiar nature of our language has had and continues to have - notwithstanding its rapid change - a considerable impact on its rise to fame and fortune…
Korean as a new language does have an interesting correlation with the other new kid on the block binary code. I consider the high internet usage by Koreans as no accident. As world language they will have trouble, but something about here and internet makes it an interesting and well looked at market for all things that exist on the net.
This thread on this story is interesting as it weaves from the ethics of journalism to linguistics.
I wonder what the two guys in the clink are talking about?
Oh yeah I remember from an earlier bust (the one with the video) probably something like this, “Dude, this is serious.”
I wonder if the strongly negative Korean view of marijuana and other non-alcoholic drugs is somehow related to societal problems spawned from opium addiction in the Chosun Dynasty. Opium was really big in China, and my impression was that the Chosun royal family may also have consumed the drug - anyone know something about opium under the Chosun Dynasty?
Of course, like Korea, the US also legally permits alcohol consumption while prohibiting other drug use, but Koreans have made alcohol consumption an important part of business culture, and in my view tend to over-medicate minor colds and infections. Public animosity towards illegal drugs may have roots in Korean society’s earlier experiences with opium.
Yes, dokdo, in the US we have the same drug policy.
However, the large majority of Koreans, as opposed to the minority of the hardcore conservative Americans in power, believe hallucenogenic drugs like cannabis and exstacy to be be just as dangerous and lethal as cocaine and heroine. They’ve been told so, just like our parents’ generation was, by people in power.
They are woefully ignorant- just like many American politicians are.
On the other hand, Koreans seem to be far behind in not waking up to the fact that serious binge drinking- to vomiting & unconciousness- are very, very bad for you. Most of us figure this out by the end of university.
There seems to be a great pride here in getting as much alcohol as possible into your system and when you’ve reached your limit, keep on drinking!
It’s just not a “healthy” way of living or thinking.
As for the negative view of non-alcoholic drugs, look to the Park Chung Hee dictatorship.
Yes, the American administration 1945-8 pushed for the new R.O.K. to criminalize drugs such as cannabis. Nobody really thought much about it before this. They didn’t think too much about it afterward either. They just made the laws to mollify the Americans.
Cut to the 1960′-70’s. Park Chung Hee had 2 problems to deal with:
1- musicians who like to smoke the herb and write/sing anti-government songs. He had to crack down on them and get them out of sight, out of mind. He decided to come down hard on the drugs.
2- his own son was an avid drug user- not sure which one(s). This didn’t make the Park family look too good. In order to save face, he demonized drugs and helped create the ideas on drugs that Koreans have now.
Park knew that the large majority of Koreans didn’t do drugs, but they do like to get their drink on. So it became “down with drugs and up with soju”.
When will they ever learn- Koreans and Americans?
kwandongbrian,
Thanks for posting that link, it was very interesting. I still wonder about drug-related arrests though, and wonder why the government doesn’t make them public.
Just noticed the “native teachers” ad at the top right-hand side of the page.
They all look like potheads to me.
look each night the amount of drunk, vile and agressively violent addushi’s
now just imagine if they could get their hands on some good green stuff instead of alcohol….and mellow the f__k out!
as for what should be illegal
SOJU
and as for <b)plane retarded
come on give me a break my egg nog was spiked full of something last night…can i file charges on someone?????
“But I have never been comfortable with that too clearly PC line, and suspect the peculiar nature of our language has had and continues to have - notwithstanding its rapid change - a considerable impact on its rise to fame and fortune…”
…a rise that really started in the 1940s and only took off for good in the last 25 years or so. French was still the preferred language to do business in Europe in the late 80s, as a matter of fact. So, maybe shouldn’t be so quite to feel pride in the fact that English is currently the language of choice to do business. Wait a few hundred years first and see if it goes the way of Latin (yeah, you say Latin is still studied today…Doesn’t make it any less a dead and extinct language.)
Still off-topic, but there is some kind of balance of frankness and semi-fluid pronunciation that those foreign to the language seem to enjoy. A curious experience was when in France, how despite French being touted as the beautiful sounding language, many French people told me that it they think English sounds more beautiful, and it’s not the French that said this too (though I think due to the widespread infection of English, people have become adverse to admit it).
Well, either that or they’re just limited to the languages they hear and just prefer English ’cause it’s different…
http://www.encyclopedia.com/do.....0languages
Actually Latin is not so dead. It has had a rebirth (if you read through some of links on the web site I have indicated) that point to the use of it as a corner stone of solid language learning skills.
Learn Latin the rest of Europe is easy.
Or
Learn Chinese (Mandarin) most of Asia is easy.
The Expat is in for a nasty surprise when he opens the special Christmas care package Pawi has sent to each of his admirers in Korea!
interesting point.
Slim, why bring up Pawi in a post he hasn’t even participated in?
user-81. It was a holiday joke. No offense intended.
For people like Herod interested what the drug stats are for Korea I am planning today to do some research and figure out Korean drug arrests compared to foreigners. Stay tuned.
I’ve heard rumors of foreigners being randomly tested at the airport as they enter Korea. Sounds a bit far-fetched. Anyone know if this is true?
“many French people told me that it they think English sounds more beautiful”
It’s a matter of perception. To the young generations of French, English is the language of Hollywood movies. For some French speakers in Canada (less of the younger generation, though), it is perceived differently. Things have gotten better in the last 25 years or so, but let’s just say that the French in France have never been treated rudely, refused service in a shop, or had racist insults thrown at them because they spoke in French. I have.
#37,
Nah, it’s extinct and dead.
It has no native speakers (no, Spanish and the other Romance Languages are not Latin) and consequently it doesn’t evolve like a a modern language, no new Latin grammatical structures, words, and idiomatic expressions are created.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinct_language
For those interested I have translated and compared the Foreigner and Korean Crime rates:
http://tinyurl.com/33fz9d
Pretty interesting results.
Frothing at the mouth and crazy blabbering included in the package…
GI Korea, thanks for the stats. Very interesting.
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