And in the KT, English teacher Steve Schertzer in Busan tells English teachers — and businessmen — to stop Westernizing Koreans. Here’s some of it:
It is no secret that many of the foreign English teachers come here with an agenda.
Like the U.S. government, which unabashedly send troops to different nations to spread democracy, many native English teachers here shamelessly indoctrinate Korean children and adults (especially girls and women), into the Western point-of-view by bringing into the classroom ideas and modes of behavior that should be considered out-of-bounds for a native English teacher in a foreign country.
Examples of this indoctrination are native English teachers in hagwon (private language institutes) and universities “advising” Korean women on how to leave their husband or boyfriend, to English teachers who brazenly bring feminist writings, revolutionist literature, and material which openly advocates radical social change into a public school classroom with the intention of disseminating this to impressionable 13 and 14 year old boys and girls.
A recent thread on a teachers and expatriates’ Web site in Korea will attest to this. Much of this material is not only inappropriate for Korean middle school students, it’s offensive. Any native English teacher who does this should be considered a missionary and a cultural imperialist who seeks to undermine the values of their host country.
Read the rest on your own.
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160 Comments
God, how sad can you get?
He should read “When One Culture’s Custom Is Another’s Taboo” by Barbara Crossette (New York Times, March 6 1999), to my mind a classic on when it’s time to call a spade a spade and acknowledge the bad points of a country or culture to be what they are. Not merely “different”.
http://www.panix.com/~squigle/dcp/cultrel.html
I’m not certain whether “esl_Steve” is right or wrong, since I don’t have a first-hand view of these esl-terrorists in action; but I do agree that esl teachers should avoid politics in the classroom, avoid seducing students or their families, and avoid eating at unhealthy places…
This guy has no right to call himself an English teacher or pass himself off as some sort of education expert giving advice in newspapers if he doesn’t understand the essential point that like all languages, English is embedded with its own values, concepts, ideas and unique worldview. Indeed, the main reason why many Koreans can’t speak English decently after long, hard years of study is because they try to speak it from a strictly Korean point-of-view. If people want to learn English, it’s all or nothing — end of story. To be sure, if people are being forced to learn English against their will, that’s wrong and is the main problem with the current ESL system here, but of course that’s another issue entirely, isn’t it?
It’s inappropriate to begin an article like that with anything other than “Are you there God? It’s me, Steve.”
I’d be the first to say that teachers should be more discreet in the classroom. After all, if the goal is to elicit conversation, a teacher who withholds opinions (at least until the end of class) is generally more successful.
But comparing English teachers to corporate McDonald’s executives? That doesn’t even begin to make sense. He might as well throw in gangster rappers. They’re American and vaguely threatening, right?
Read the rest?
No thanks, the guy’s a nut.
This guy Steve Schertzer needs to be euthanized!
Apparently, he has no life and spends the better part of his non-working time authoring diatribes against foreign teachers in Korea.
He is a foreign teacher in Korea and he keeps writing this insane BS to the papers. Now, with the high quality journalism/media we have in Korea, they keep printing it.
I have not personally met Steve, but I know someone who has and this guy most definitely needs to get a life and/or find a reason for living other than writing letters to the media that totally diss foreign teachers while totally kissing ass on Korea!
After reading his latest diatribe, I can see that Steve’s agenda in Korea is to promote misogyny and male chauvinism as he clearly states that he is against students learning about feminism and other forms of female empowerment.
My guess is poor little Stevie was coming to Korea expecting all the women to be subservient dolls who would cater to his every him and treat him like a king because he feels like he’s a “real man”. I bet he got the surprise of his life.
Steve, go to the Middle East where your views on women are still popular!
#1: Thanks for that link, James. I’ve heard you mention that article before on other comment boards, and was curious to read it.
So who volunteers to adapt those ideas and send a rebuttal to the times editor?
And where does the times dig up these guys? Weren’t they also the ones who published that “top 50 universities” clown a week or two back? I think this guy lost a bet, or somebody’s twisting his arm, or he’s whipped through the floor by his Korean mother-in-law. That’s the only way I can excuse this drivel. Either that or this guy’s the new Jonathan Swift.
In my opinion, a lot of the negative comparisons made by non-Korean English teachers are more a (tactless) expression of culture-shock than a cleverly disguised attempt to colonize the thoughts of Koreans, and I check how well-informed the critic is and how long they’ve been here, and take their critiques with an appropriately sized grain of salt when they start moaning.
I recognize that the topics he’s thinking of don’t go over well with adults, and I’ve advised coworkers of mine not to bring their culture shock into their conversation classes before, for the sake of not rubbing people the wrong way. . . but what’s his proposed solution, anyway, for teachers to be ideologically programmed for three months before we’re allowed to enter a classroom with impressionable children? (Sounds like a great addition to the current E-2 visa requirements.)
Again, thanks, James. I’m sure glad I switched to the Herald-Tribune now, and I’m outta here.
I’m setting the over-under on this comment thread at 80.
#3. King Baeksu, I can’t agree that one has to adopt a certain worldview to speak English properly. If that is true then English is a rubbish language as it is only capable of expressing certain human thoughts.
As far as I know the guys in the Socialist Worker’s Party speak perfectly fluent English, as did Oswald Mosley. Is there some unique worldview that they are expressing?
Just because Koreans use Jondaemal when they speak Korean to one another doesn’t mean I have to, especially when talking to other non-Koreans.
Are you subscribing to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or just having us on?
I threw up a little bit in my mouth when I saw that the Great Marmot had linked to a Schertzer ‘article’.
We’ve gotten to know Schertzer quite well down at Pusanweb.
He’s an expert teacher:
“An ideal English lesson consists of about 80 percent listening and 20 percent speaking.
http://www.koreabridge.com/for.....topic=5839
He’s professional:
“For the last two weeks I, along with two other EPIK teachers on my team, (24 altogether), have been going around Busan administering a speaking test to middle-school students… The problem is with the EPIK supervisors at each district office. These incompetent boobs, … have not communicated with us as to how to get to their schools…With ONE HOUR to go before the test actually begins, I am in a PC room still waiting for a call. I will sit here and wait. (Or maybe I’ll get a hamburger.) It’s incredible how Korean logic operates.”
Instead of calling his supervisor or asking a co-teacher to help, he took the passive-aggressive approach, just so he’d have something to bitch about.
http://www.koreabridge.com/for.....topic=4985
He’s also fond of the students:
“One beautiful little girl nicknamed “Sophia”, with eyes that danced as she spoke, took both my hands in hers and attempted to teach me the moves to “Tell Me” by the Wonder Girls.”
“I look forward to Sophia taking my hands in hers once again, and teaching me to dance.”
A little over the top, especially about a 10-year old.
http://www.ajarn.com/Contris/schertzerfeb2008.htm
#9. roboseyo, if I take over 80 how many posts am I allowed myself?
The guy is clearly a couple waves short of a shipwreck.
this’ll be my last one. . . no ballot box stuffing, or Stephen Colbert will be angry at you.
Anyone else using the E-2 as an (admittedly financially sound) excuse to learn Korean?
Hahaha - “ESL Terrorist”.
Classic!
#10: Eujin, the writer was arguing that English should be taught in some sort of value-free and concept-neutral manner and I argue that is an impossible task. Why, for example, have many modern Koreans adopted the English word “wife” even when speaking Korean instead using the traditional pure-Korean term anae or “inside person”? Because the word “anae” is freighted with a certain cultural value/concept/gender relation that does not reflect the reality of many married women in Korea today who are no longer confined within the home. English is an especially hybridized and flexible language and certainly does not overdetermine a specific way of thinking politically or ideologically, but when compared with Korean, as is the case here, it certainly does carry many values and concepts that are different from those of Korean, and cannot help but have an influence on the ESL student’s way of looking at and understanding the wider world.
Although I hate to admit I read that crap, and I blame the Marmot for those lost minutes of life, as his one example of evil imperialistic businessmen this clown refers to McDonald’s Korea head Ray Frawley as an “American” executive. Sorry champ, but the mate’s an Aussie.
And this has to be the most condescending-toward-Koreans piece ever published in any “newspaper.” It posits that Koreans are simpletons, equally and uniquely incapable of resisting the spellbinding thrall of a Prince Edward Island English teacher or a Big Mac. Woe betide these poor, helpless souls, that is until their brave defender, ESL Man, comes to the rescue. “Thank you ESL Man, for saving us from moral decrepitude and hardened arteries!” say the kiddies across the land.
That much shame cannot be an easy thing to bear. How can he despise his own cultural identity so much? Good thing he’s clearly not a feminist, or he’d probably have to cut his own unloved dick off.
This guy is frackin’ delusional.
“It is no secret that many of the foreign English teachers come here with an agenda.” I forgot, what’s the name of our secret organization again, SPECTRE, KAOS, or THRUSH? Damn, the meetings are so secret that I can’t even find them.
“many native English teachers here shamelessly indoctrinate Korean children and adults (especially girls and women), into the Western point-of-view.” “Examples of this indoctrination are “advising” Korean women on how to leave their husband or boyfriend.”
As my middle school hagwon students haven’t even started dating, I just ask them if they have any cute and unattached aunts available. Plus, their minds are already jam packed with everything gaming and texting. So, to try and explain why their history text books are highly revisionist, or have omissions the size of the entire Valless Marineris Canyon system, and introducing them to the writings of anyone besides J.K. Rowling would be more than foolhardy on my part.
And as far as McDonald’s goes, no one is forcing people inside and cramming those tasty fries down their throats. Without choice, we may never have come in from the cold, traded the horse for a car, or those stick in the dirt communications for these newfangled computers and cell phones.
BTW, even with all my insidious teaching, I’ve been able to outsmart that eye in the sky of my classroom, and those eyeballs at home, for two years now. I’ve become so adept that I’ve even beguiled the boss into asking me to stick around for another year.
Examples of this indoctrination are native English teachers in hagwon (private language institutes) and universities “advising” Korean women on how to leave their husband or boyfriend, to English teachers who brazenly bring feminist writings, revolutionist literature, and material which openly advocates radical social change into a public school classroom with the intention of disseminating this to impressionable 13 and 14 year old boys and girls.
The irony, of course, is that the vast majority of these washed-up Engrish teaching losers are themselves refugees of Western feminism.
I think King Baeksu’s assertion is dead-on. Cultural values and, inevitably, politics, are embedded into languages at the fundamental level… Therefore, it is also inevitable that “westernization” occurs when one learns the English languages.
Having said that, educators in general need to stay away from intentionally asserting politics into their teachings unless the subject itself is their politics.
My high school American history teacher, who were really respected by her students (extreme rarity these days), would never disclose any of her political leanings because she didn’t want to unfairly change our political outlook - she wanted us to figure that out ourselves. My humanities professor, also very respected, never disclosed her religion for the same reason.
“native English teachers in hagwon (private language institutes) and universities “advising” Korean women on how to leave their husband or boyfriend, to English teachers who brazenly bring feminist writings, revolutionist literature, and material which openly advocates radical social change into a public school classroom with the intention of disseminating this to impressionable 13 and 14 year old boys and girls.”
If these are all true accusations, then I think everyone can agree that the teachers in these incidences have overstepped their responsibilities as language instructors. It’s not necessarily that the politics that they present to the students are bad, but I do have ethical qualm over educators intentionally promoting their view of politics through their position as educators (whatever that politics may be).
These expat types love to compare Western women to Korean women. Western women are too loud, bitchy, assertive, hostile to men, and generally have forgotten how to act like women. A man can get sued for sexual harassment for just looking at a woman the wrong way. Gentlemen, feminism has created this mess. Have you forgotten?
The number one reason why you are in Korea is because Korean women are not supposed to be like that. And now you are consciously working to bring feminism to Korea?
That’s just fucking brilliant, dude.
#23 - So what of those of us who like their women to be loud and in charge? Sorry that you find Western women to be dick-shriveling harpies, but a lot of us find submissive, stay in the kitchen mom-types about the unsexiest thing on the planet.
Oh, yeah, feminist writers… Be careful, they might actually speak their mind and want to go to university if they read ‘Anne of Green Gables’.
Kids are far more sophisticated than he gives them credit for. When I was 13-15, I was going through my Victor Hugo and George Orwell phases. It didn’t prevent me from being the top student in my class.
“…bringing offensive literature into the classrooms of this nation is the exclusive right of the Korean teachers, not foreigners.”
In ol’ Steve’s view, it’s perfectly OK for Korean teachers to indoctrinate their students with offensive literature. I think that’s a new low, even for a bottom-dweller like you, Steve.
Anyone else think that Steve Schertzer is not a real person, but rather some kind of avant-garde art performance?
@#24
I think somebody unintentionally let out their dominatrix fetishes (just kidding!) :-). But a surprising number of people that I’ve met in the States do have a thing for submissive women… but they’re still in the minority.
“Kids are far more sophisticated than he gives them credit for. When I was 13-15, I was going through my Victor Hugo and George Orwell phases. It didn’t prevent me from being the top student in my class.”
The fact that you were going through Victor Hugo and George Orwell at the time probably contributed to being the top student. Most kids… not so much.
#22: “Therefore, it is also inevitable that “westernization” occurs when one learns the English languages.”
Bum, I obviously agree, and I think the writer should put his money where his mouth is and just stop teaching English here altogether, or else risk accusations of base hypocrisy for complicity in the very phenomenon of Westernization he decries.
Perhaps he could become a full-time and of course volunteer activist here instead, organizing mass boycotts against Ronald McDonald and Pizza Slut, or work on a farm in Cholla-do where his toxic Western presence amongst the benighted natives would be reduced significantly, while at the same time helping preserve Korean traditions of the land and all that. The pay would suck but he’d probably feel much better about himself.
Or perhaps he could just leave Korea altogether, for if nothing else the removal of his apparently rather large Western body would at least diminish the Western presence here on the Peninsula by about 100 kilos and several loud decibels.
The article is so preposterous it must be a hoax of some sort.
#17: King Baeksu and #22, at the risk of being accused of ballot stuffing, I still don’t agree.
Are you saying that I am more likely to expect my wife to stay at home if I only speak Korean, as compared to if I only speak English? Does Titus 2 or 1 Timothy 5 make more sense in Korean than in English?
Is this like saying that because I use words like “mankind” and “history” I’m more likely to think that males rather than females should play a prevalent role in society? As I learn Korean am I more likely to identify with “ah yes, chipsaram, you must stay at home”?
What is certainly true is that learning a language gives one greater access to the thought processes of the people who use that language. So it is true that learning English allows you to more ready access to whatever “culture” or “politics” you think the language carries. But it’s not really in the language, it’s only in the language users.
There is this certain notion that if a language doesn’t have a single word for a concept then that concept must be somehow alien to the speakers of that language. Allegedly there’s no word in English for the Danish word “hygge”. But anyone who has experienced “hygge” knows what it is. You don’t need a single word for it, just an experience of what it is.
OK, apologies for the long post but Stephen Colbert will be angry with me otherwise.
You almost seem to be suggesting that somehow English is a better language than Korean because it is conceptually more flexible. Pawi seems to speak pretty good English, does pawi understand concepts that non-English speaking Koreans don’t?
@#29
What I’m trying to say is that politics inevitably bleed into language instructions, but one should not consciously and intentionally assert politics into it (as some English teachers apparently had).
For example, Korean language have family titles that obviously do not have its counterparts (누나, 형, 언니, 오빠, 고모/이모, 외삼촌/작은아버지, etc.), in that no one actually calls their older brother “Older brother” or “big brother” without sounding awkward. Consequently, learning about these different family titles would also carry the undertone of intense focus and attention towards family hierarchy that may not be prevalent in the learner’s culture.
Vice versa is true. A Korean learning about English family titles (”mom”,”dad”,”aunt”,”uncle”) would also be learning about the LACK of family hierarchy that is very different from the Korean culture.
Thus, language instructions inevitably carry cultural exchanges. What Steve Schertzer suggests is physically impossible. But I think a fair point can be made that teachers shouldn’t consciously and intentionally insert their politics into instructions, no matter what that politics may be.
Lol… I guess that was directed at #30, not #29
This guy needs to be shot on sight so he doesn’t further pollute the human gene pool. If not, I’m sure he will marry some throw away Korean ajuma that no self respecting Korean gentlemen would even consider and become completely twisted.
Funny thing is…for a guy that whines about McD’s, he looks like a gold card carrying member.
lmao at comment 3
Languages are languages they dont come with cultural values.
Well, it’s been established that Schertzer is:
- nutcase with a real hard on for dissing English teachers in the local media.
and
- a complete loser who has no social life and definitely has some mental issues.
The question remains is do we continue to be pissed off at his habitual attempts to smear all of us or just feel sorry for him because he obviously has some real problems?
Or both?
#30: “What is certainly true is that learning a language gives one greater access to the thought processes of the people who use that language. So it is true that learning English allows you to more ready access to whatever “culture” or “politics” you think the language carries. But it’s not really in the language, it’s only in the language users.”
I think we essentially agree, save for the last sentence which is a distinction without a difference. Language doesn’t exist without users. That’s why it is constantly changing and evolving. I believe this is a point that Wittgenstein made in Philosophical Investigations, i.e., about the impossibility of a truly private language.
I do not think I was arguing that English is superior to Korean. I do think, however, that Koreans use Korean in a Korean way and English-speakers use their particular dialect form of English in their own way, and that there are many differences between the way Koreans use their native language and the way native speakers of English use their native language. It follows that a Korean who has become fluent in English will have learned how to use language and hence think in a new and different way.
Personally, I think Koreans use English too much these days, mainly because it is easier for them to import loan words in many cases than to create new words using Korean roots and semantic building blocks. I would personally support the idea of Koreans being more creative and active in coming up with Korean neologisms that reflect their current reality, rather than being so lazy and coming up with absurdities like “Inno City” or weird hybrids like “Sexy Mong” or “Saladent.” This is actually a form of linguistic colonialism, but it is Koreans who are doing it and thus they have no one to blame but themselves.
Finally, etymologically, the word history is gender-neutral as far as I know. As for Pawi, he seems to be gender-neutral as well.
#34: I believe it was also Wittgenstein who said, “That of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence.”
The lack of creativity, a trait unfornuately held by alot of Koreans, is a result of repression and still living remnants of Confucius thinking.
If a Korean becomes more creative and independent in his thought process its not because of a language it most likely has to do with whomever he learned English from.
While it is true that currently system of education in Korea tends to suppress creativity (apparently I was quite an artist until my 3rd grade teacher severely chastised me for drawing things that weren’t ‘on topic’ :-D), to attribute creativity in the Korean population mostly to English language education… is a bit too much.
#39: Bum, I did try warn him in #37, didn’t I?
Oh, yeah, feminist writers… Be careful, they might actually speak their mind and want to go to university if they read ‘Anne of Green Gables’.
I had a thing for Megan Follows, who played Anne Shirley.
And for them, there are any number of women who will happily hop quite readily into a submissive role, whatever that means. Sure, you might have to move away from New York to increase your chances, but heck — who said Utah is that bad a place, anyhow? I’m just saying that not everyone is brutalized by the idea of a strong woman (to the point of becoming a ‘refugee from Western feminism’, even!) As for the people who actually compare Western Women to Korean Women as if such a categorical comparison was even possible… well, they’re just deluded on both ends.
People are such hypocrites sometimes. Anyone ever here of the Korean Wave?
Why anyone would want a weak, submissive woman is beyond me.
It seems many women want submissive men. And heaven forbid a free thinking, liberated Korean women. Korean men wouldn’t have any slaves if that were to happen.
Like the U.S. government, which unabashedly send troops to different nations to spread democracy,
hey dipshit you have a job because those troops were sent to spread democracy
#27,
Yes, basically the point I was making. I was alluding to the fact that the works of Hugo and Orwell are thought provoking and exactly what you should want a teenager to read.
Sure, some kids are content with reading Harry Potter…but in my experience many Korean kids like reading something with a little bit more meat. I knew a 15 year-old Korean boy who had promised himself he would read everything written by Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, for example.
This guy has to be taking the piss:
http://www.ajarn.com/Contris/schertzerfeb2008.htm
I woulnd’t mind foreigners bringing their ideals to South Korea, but I don’t think they should exploit their teaching positions to indoctrinate the children. I will say the same about non-foreingers too, ESPECIALLY the teacher’s union who’s been abusing their teaching position to brainwash students with communist crap.
#47 - that’s brutal. The guy’s self-righteousness and self-loathing rises like the steam from a pile of warm shit.
#47,
A bit too flowery for my own tastes, but I gotta give him credit for being able to write for his audience.
But, is that a poorly formulated sentence I see or does he really believe that HIV positive people are unsavory characters?
Oh, and he’s ‘colored blind’? I’d blame racist hiring practices for that one.
Hey, Link. Drop a line to the Korean government. They need your help with the website for their new TalK program.
This is actually a form of linguistic colonialism, but it is Koreans who are doing it and thus they have no one to blame but themselves.
i.e., it really isn’t “colonialism” then, is it?
@#50
I think that’s the point of the comment…
I understand the articles premise.
We are here to teach the English curriculum given to us. We are not to indoctrinate on our political, religious, or sexual bias.
Korea is a Confucian society. We are not here to change their cultural system.
Korea is a religious society. They are mostly Buddhist, Christian, and Catholic. Foreigners who want a pulpit to rant their Americanized Secular Atheism do not belong here.
Thankfully, Korea still allows pre-teens and young teens to be kids. The National media has not cast them into sexual meat on display. Foreigners who purposely use their lessons as an “awareness” do not belong here.
Like the writer of the article, I am sort of amazed and perplexed. So called educated teaching University Graduates do not have the common sense to simply follow the curriculum in front of them.
#47, That’s disturbing on so many levels.
I’m starting to wonder if he might actually be a North Korean plant?
I wonder if Bruce Cumings senses a disturbance in the force.
I think some here have overstated the connection between language and culture. Sure, English lacks honorifics and is more egalitarian than Korean, but that doesn’t mean that the language somehow contains feminist values. If that were true,the English language should have changed drastically during the 60s Women’s Rights Movement, which isn’t the case. Also as someone pointed out, if a language lacks a word for a concept, it can always borrow one, like “wife” to recognize the new role of women in society.
In the second of Schertzer’s bizarre articles posted by Marmot, he suggests that in addition to a blood test and police check, the Korean government “test his tears” to gauge “his heart” and love for students, which includes the handholding with the 12 yr old girl.
Seriously, this guy’s article makes a real point, although not the one he wants to make - there really does need to be another test to screen English teachers in Korea - a psychological test for mental stability, which would help protect Korean kids from the likes of Schertzer. Something is really off about that guy.
As for culture in the classroom - it’s an interesting topic for the adult level conversation course. In a ‘western style’ classroom students are encouraged to voice their views, and are welcome to argue, like Pawi, that Korean ways are vastly superior, if they wish.
What’s really funny is Schertzer’s view of Korean women as passive followers - ready to separate from their husbands at the foreign teacher’s mere suggestion. Come on now, Korean women are a pretty wary lot, and are a whole lot more likely to manipulate and take advantage of the foreign teacher than the other way around. The foreign teacher is a foreigner in Korea after all, hardly a position of power. The Korea Times ought to exercise better judgement than publish this bizarre garbage.
Anyone have an extra tissue handy?
@51: if only it were!
I used to think that most of the ESL professionals in Korea were self-important weenies, boy was I wrong. The fact that many of you feel like you are lynch pins of Korean society is laughable. You guys are cast aside like used condoms and you don’t see it. When you have paid off your student loans and get your fill of frat-boy lifestyles, go get real jobs and start contributing to the tax base in a substantial sense. You guys live in a circle-jerk world of your own.
No, you don’t have to, but you would sound rude to Koreans and Korean-speaking foreigners. A foreigner wishing to communicate properly in Korean needs to internalize the social hierarchy that determines verb forms and other honorific/humble language.
…speaking of men who feel brutalized by Western Feminism…
There’s a curriculum? That must be nice. Most of my 6 years as a teacher, I was basically told to ‘wing it’. Now granted, I didn’t try to get my 14-year-olds to read Jane Eyre or anything, but if my students really wanted to discuss a topic that I felt was appropriate for their age level, I generally didn’t cower from the invitation — even if it did lead to some exposure to (*gasp*) ‘western’ ideas… When I actually had a curriculum though, I generally stuck to it (since even though the curriculum was dull as a wheel of cheese, they were tested on it.)
This guy is all over the place. He rails on Koreans and foreigners whichever his “beef of the day” entails.
For better of worse, culture is part of language learning. You don’t think Koreans who are teaching the Korean language abroad aren’t teaching their culture and values to those abroad?
“”But it’s not really in the language, it’s only in the language users.”
I think we essentially agree, save for the last sentence which is a distinction without a difference.”
I don’t think it is a distinction without a difference. The language user can express a thought in English, French, Korean, Swahili. He would still be trying to express the same thought, or are you suggesting that this is not possible?
I’m glad you brought up Wittgenstein. While it may be true that the utterances I make do not provoke the same “pictures” in the mind of the listener, this is in essence as much true when talking to a Korean versus an American, as it is when talking to a Kiwi versus an American or talking to my mum versus talking to my friends.
Ironically, it may be the words that we are using that are leading to our misunderstanding. Somewhere along the line we’ve both learnt English and we both use it correctly, but we disagree about what it means. Translate the whole thing into Korean and we’d still be having the same discussion.
See, I still disagree with this below, despite your clarification that you mean it in the context of Wittgenstein.
“…he doesn’t understand the essential point that like all languages, English is embedded with its own values, concepts, ideas and unique worldview. Indeed, the main reason why many Koreans can’t speak English decently after long, hard years of study is because they try to speak it from a strictly Korean point-of-view. If people want to learn English, it’s all or nothing”
What are those values, concepts and unique worldview? Can you put your finger on them for me? (Maybe you admit I shouldn’t get too hung up on the word “unique”?) I can teach English in a perfectly sexist way if I wish. Analyse the following sentences EBS-style for parts of speech.
“A woman’s place is in the home. Women should not get jobs in industry and they should leave decision making up to men wherever possible.”
As for bumfromkorea;
“A Korean learning about English family titles (”mom”,”dad”,”aunt”,”uncle”) would also be learning about the LACK of family hierarchy that is very different from the Korean culture.”
If I based an entire English course on watching re-runs of the Godfather would I still somehow be forced to de-emphasize family hierarchy and family values? Certainly the Corleone’s have a different family structure to your average Korean, but its also vastly different from my family structure. We still both use English to express those thoughts. It’s still English.
I can assure you that I have the concept of a “younger brother”, without necessarily having a single word for it.
THE concept? Family relationships and roles vary across cultures. There is no single universal concept of “younger brother.” Older-younger sibling relationships are different between Korea and North America. Most young Chinese do not have siblings period although they also use family terms with unrelated people.
Essential to mastery of a language is to understand and appreciate that language for what it is, rather than searching for equivalents in one’s native language. As an international language and a vernacular language of several countries, English is far less culture-bound than Korean, but it is not culturally neutral.
#50, 57: Sperwer, I blame the marketeers, media and cultural elite for going batty with the English loan words here in Korea. If you are marketeer who lacks a creative idea for an ad campaign, for instance, it is easier to just toss in some English words into your ad to give the appearance of modernity and glamour. But it’s simply gotten out of control here — imagine if French words comprised 20% of American advertising campaigns. Absurd, right? The English language is clearly colonizing the Korean language and the elite here are doing it to the masses.
#61: Eujin, as soon as I step into a classroom here in Korea and say to my students, “What’s up?” I have flipped the script on the standard teacher-student paradigm here in Korea. My very presence and style of communication as a native English speaker from Western country is a cultural value. I expect critical debate and discussion, I encourage non-hierarchical forms of interaction between me and the students, I expect directness and clear yes-or-no answers and so on and so forth. These are all my biases as a native English speaker and they are very different from your average Korean teacher. I know because my former students had told me this repeatedly. You seem to be arguing from some sort of grammar-translation position which as many have argued is the primary problem with the way ESL is taught here in Korea by most Korean teachers.
#47: Between all the grammar mistakes, typos and cliches, the guy does not have sufficient command of English to be pulling a real salary teaching it to others.
Rather than testing tears, I suggest Koreans simply hire qualified teachers here. A teacher who has invested the time and money to get certified has demonstrated sufficient dedication to the profession of teaching in my opinion.
Personally, I think the powers-that-be here know this all too well but are too half-assed to change the situation for whatever reason, and so dolts like the writer under discussion continue to find their way into classrooms here.
#62: Sonagi is absolutely correct. As any student of semiotics knows, words have both denotative and connotative meanings. The word dog/gae may in the broadest sense denote a furry, 4-legged canine mammal in both English and Korean, but at the connotative level culture enters the picture in a profound way: In America, for instance, dog generally connotes “friendly pet for humans” while traditionally in Korea it connoted a tasty delicacy and important source of protein enhancing male virility. Obviously Westernization had muddied this picture and now gae can also signify pet for many here in Korea. In any case, we must recognize both the denotative and connotative meanings of words in order to understand how they function within their more general cultural context. Simple grammar translation doesn’t cut it.
He writes: “Mr. President, my tears and your legacy are inexorably linked.”
Rahaha…not just the utter bull s*&te but I think he needs to inexplore his vocabulary.
That’s some theory of agency that you have there, King. Does the English language put its trousers on one or two legs at a time?
“Korea is a religious society. They are mostly Buddhist, Christian, and Catholic. Foreigners who want a pulpit to rant their Americanized Secular Atheism do not belong here.”
The split between secular and religious is fairly even approx 50/50; and the religious among them are split fairly evenly between buddhist and christian albeit christians appear to be getting ahead(it looks like christianty is getting ahead now.
Oh, and I just love this “are you a catholic, no I’m a christian thing?” very much evidenced in the comment above.
“Korea is a religious society. They are mostly Buddhist, Christian, and Catholic. Foreigners who want a pulpit to rant their Americanized Secular Atheism do not belong here.”
The split between secular and religious is fairly even approx 50/50; and the religious among them are split fairly evenly between buddhist and christian albeit christians appear to be getting ahead(it looks like christianty is getting ahead now.
Oh, and I just love this “are you a catholic, no I’m a christian”, thing? very much evidenced in the comment above.
#66: You are a lawyer, are you not? I have proposed an argument, and unless you have a counterargument that disproves mine in a convincing manner, you have no case to stand on. I’m no lawyer, but snarkines is not an argument as far as I’m concerned.
On a more general level, if you’re going to start talking about agency, I suggest you read some Foucault and then reexamine your rather cavalier and retrograde assumptions.
#52,
Yes, although English is used at times perpetuate the class division that exists within Korean society, to label it as ‘imperialist’ seems incorrect for the reason that you pointed out.
I was trained as a lawyer and practiced in the US and here for some time, until I tired of being the cigar store white man/white house nigger that is the only status permitted to foreign lawyers here and, like Bartleby, decided I preferred not to.
Interestingly, I was Foucault’s teaching assistant for a year during one of his sojourns in the US; so I’m not impressed by the allusion. If you have any argument to make based on his work, please knock yourself out.
If it’s along the lines of your claim that the English language is capable of acting as an agent and colonizing anything, I suggest you go back and reread Ludwig, Russell, Austin, et al. so that you can be free at last, brother.
As if I wasn’t disturbed enough by the first diatribe posted by Mr Schertzer, I had to read the second posted in #47. That is some scary sh!t! He is obviously suffering from some sort of mental illness.
If you check the comments on the Times website, there are some pretty creepy quotes that the guy has posted at PusanWeb as well.
#74: Actually, I read Austin with John Searle, his former student, in a Philosophy of Language class at UCB, but I think it should be clear that I am not an analytic philosopher.
You still have not proposed a counterargument, and I’m not sure what part of “marketeers, the media and cultural elite” you do not understand. That seems pretty specific to me.
I personally think you just have a bee in your bonnet about me for some perverse reason and don’t actually care about these issues as much as you pretend, or else you would actually stick to discussing the issues.
For now, I will just follow the Sperwer method of snide debate: You don’t actually think the legal sector here is some sort of slave-based plantation system do you?
The “marketers, media and cultural elite” to which you have made reference you have identified as Korean. Yet you persist in attributing colonialism to the English language itself. The use of the English language by indigenous elites may be exploitative (it certainly is often comical or offensive; I probably would have found a lot of French usage after 1066 offensive, except that I understand my own ancestry is in part Norman); but it isn’t “colonialist”, either as the product of a colonizing power or local collaborationists. Your use of the term is at best incoherent, and at worst a gross distortion of what’s actually going on perpetrated through the deployment of a bit of ideological jargon that seems designed more to elicit nods of approval from the like-minded than to illuminate social reality.
Re the others:
1. I find your persistent insertion of yourself into discussions here annoying, especially combined with your own penchant for spouting muddled lefty cant. You often don’t make arguments, just pronouncements. While usually more interesting than Goose Boy’s dicta ex
cathedrahan, they aren’t necessarily more deserving of deliberate counterargument2. No.
Tell me Baeksu, when there was already a shortage a year ago, then add the new visa regulations, then add extra certification, where does that leave Korea? I understand that there are probably some leaders who understand the situation. Do you honestly think they will come out and try to advance this sort of legislation? Mothers can vote here right? Who is going to be the one to tell these women that their child just doesn’t fit into the new English program?
I don’t know. If I have a choice of going back to school to get certified and going on for my masters, getting a real job with decent pay and not having to introduce these kids to the concept of no and stop, tough choice.
Let’s not forget the pragmatic viewpoint. It’s not like the business ain’t making money now.
I also got the skeevy chills reading that guys letter to the president. LMB might just have to rethink everything now.
I’ll make sure Mrs. Linkd, E7 visa-holding International Marketing Manager 차장, reads that one.
English teachers: will they never stop causing the rest of us foreign residents intense embarrassment?
#65. Sonagi
“THE concept? Family relationships and roles vary across cultures. There is no single universal concept of “younger brother.”…Most young Chinese do not have siblings period although they also use family terms with unrelated people.”
I chatted to a Chinese colleague about this at lunch today. Although he would refer to both his younger sister and an unrelated younger friend as “meimei”, he felt that Chinese people still understand that their “relationship” to these two people is different. He was also at a bit of a loss to say what word he would use for “younger female friend not my parents daughter” as he said “xiaojie” has come to represent something more like our maths whiz friend.
And I dare say he hasn’t learnt to distinguish them by studying English. Somehow the concept is there even if the language doesn’t reflect that.
I still maintain you can teach English with completely different cultural contexts and thus the cultural baggage must at some level be divorced (or divorceable) from the language. I perhaps can’t take the “me-ness” out of my teaching but it isn’t there in the language I’m trying to teach (I’m not trying to teach English by the way). I can start a class with “what’s up?” or I can start a class with “you may be seated”. It’s still English.
This must be at least the 80th post so I’ll stop now as I have work to do. I’d like to point out that I had no part in provoking the spat between Sperwer and King Baeksu.
One last thought, I have in the past met people who claim to be native speakers of Esperanto. Their parents taught it to them when they were children and they learnt it “as children do”. Now presumably whatever cultural baggage they carry with them is inherited from their parents native tongues and the cultures that they grew up in, not from Eastern Poland ca. 1880. A “hundo” is to them whatever their native culture suggests it is.
Surely the culture and the language are seperable? A dog by any other name would taste as sweet.
#77: It is obvious that you would rather obfuscate the processes of globalization and its effects in Korea — linguistic, cultural and otherwise — because you yourself a part of that very process. The English language has a certain cultural prestige here and is often wielded by local elites to infect and yes colonize the Korean language. When we say that a language has a certain cultural prestige, there is an implicit power relation at stake. Do you see people here in the streets wearing T-shirts written in Han’gul? No you don’t, because they’re all in English. Why is that? Because English is often seen to have a superior status here — more “modern,” more “fashionable,” more “chic” — than Korean in many local contexts. Where does such a mentality derive from? It derives from the forces of globalization — in the sense of it being an Anglo-American-inspired model of neoliberal corporate capitalism — which is itself a form of imperialism that is taking over the planet, and yes, language is just one of many weapons deployed in that process.
I’ve read many of your comments here on this blog and it is obvious that that condescension you have for Korea is even greater than that that you have for me. I wonder why are you even here. Oh wait, I already answered that question in the previous paragraph, didn’t I?
#78: Maddlew, I have argued many times, including on national Korean TV, that English should be an elective not a requirement here. A majority of Koreans seem to agree. If the number of Koreans studying English here halved overnight, the problem of supply of qualified native ESL teachers would come much closer to being solved. For some reason, however, the government and corporations here insist on forcing people to study English, despite the fact that a majority have no genuine need or desire to do so.
obfuscation, eh. You mean your ascription of active agency to abstractions, your misuse of the term “colonialism, your constant shifting of the terms of debate (e.g., colonialism to globalization) and elision of the two? It’s obvious you’ve sucked up way too much of the soma to ever recover, so adios.
#84: Main Entry: col·o·nize
Pronunciation: \ˈkä-lə-ˌnīz\
Function: verb
3: to infiltrate with usually subversive militants for propaganda and strategy reasons
*******
Sperwer, you often start out strong, but generally speaking you rarely seem able to close the deal.
In any case, just because 21st-century postmodern imperialism operates under very different forms than in the classic 19th century model (see Hardt & Negri, for example) does not mean that it is not imperialism.
Adios to you, too.
I’m sure we’re all glad that’s over.
OK, and be sure to look both ways so you don’t get run down by any stray unicorns
It becomes ever more clear why you and Carr seem to be two peas in a pod.
In the future, before lecturing someone on holding fantasies, why not actually learn Korean before discoursing on the subject as you have attempted to do here?
Pretty fantastical if you ask me.
The good news is, I learned a new word.
obfuscate
1. to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy.
2. to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information.
3. to darken.
I’m going to use this word tomorrow to my thesis adviser. “You are NOT helping, Beth. You’re obfuscating the whole process!”
“I was Foucault’s teaching assistant for a year during one of his sojourns in the US”
“I read Austin with John Searle, his former student, in a Philosophy of Language class at UCB”
Oh Yeah?! Well I… um… I got my books signed by Peter Singer and John Rawls! So… Ha!
#89: Peter Singer is cool. My old roommate in Melbourne dates and now lives with one of his daughters, who is also very cool and researches Aboriginal languages and communities. I believe his family made a killing in the coffee trade in Melbourne, providing a nice cushion for the important work he has subsequently done.
Gravatar!
EMPIRE explicitly states throughout that the new economic order is NOT imperialism. From page 12:
Not that I would recommend the book at all. Bad history, dull jargon, a lot of reheated Marx for the information age.
oh yeah? well my uncle used to go to church with Avril Lavigne!
King Poseur is right. Just this morning, my 7-year old Korean nephew woke up and immediately searched for a hangul t-shirt to put on before he went to hagwon. Unfortunately for him, a foot soldier of the Elitist Linguistic Colonization Corps showed up and brutally forced a Spiderman t-shirt over his head at gunpoint.
Don’t get me wrong, that kid loves Spiderman more than kimchi. But his affection was born of a swift kick from a jack-booted cultural thug, shoving that cartoon character down his poor, naive, innocent throat. Had it not been for that boot and that thug, perhaps he would be feeling the sweet rub of a cotton t-shirt against his skin bearing the picture of a purely Korean superhero, rather than a perverted, subversive creation of Stan Lee. And then, only then would that little boy be free.
Would you care to elaborate on how much responsibility you believe the Korean “masses” bear for their consumption of all things English? Or for that matter, describe their culpability in driving the success of globalization in Korea by devouring the fruits of the Great Satan?
Is your opinion of the Korean masses so low that you believe them incapable of resisting the great cabal of cultural imperialists? Are the lowly masses just empty vessels, filled with western crap on a daily basis without their consent and against their will, like dead drones invaded by a body snatcher? Are they just unaware of the inherently evil nature of a Big Mac and a pair of Nikes, or simply too stupid to recognize it when they see it?
Can you let us know just how many cardboard cutouts of George W Bush need to be jizzed on via giant zucchini before the Korean people wake up from their collective zombified state of cultural enslavement?
How many ejaculations will it take before they realize that they are not in fact exercising their own free will as they seem to believe, but are in fact the helpless victims of the linguistic colonizers, the cultural imperialists, the Engrish t-shirt Gestapo, and the all-powerful purveyors and enforcers of chic, modern, fashionable, and trendy that patrol the streets of Seoul gunning down all who refuse to fall in line?
Is it really Sperwer who is condescending towards Koreans? Isn’t your portrait of the Korean public as thoughtless, powerless, clueless, ignorant victims rather than individuals exercising free will and rational choice the precise definition of condescension?
#91: Well, yes, they clearly state that the old form of imperialism which was based on nation-states projecting their sovereignty outwards across the planet is over. The new form of Empire they describe is deterritorialized and transnational, and yet they often compare it to the Roman Empire in terms of how it opertates. Thus they write: “The distinct national colors of the imperialist map of the world have merged and blended in the imperial global rainbow.”
#93: “How many ejaculations will it take before they realize that they are not in fact exercising their own free will as they seem to believe, but are in fact the helpless victims of the linguistic colonizers, the cultural imperialists…”
Actually, in my experience about half of Koreans studying English do not do so out of their own free will, but because they are forced to do so either by the state or the economic regime presently in place here. Many of them hate English passionately but are forced to study it nonetheless. That is certainly not my definition of free will.
Now, why don’t you get your facts straight about the zucchini performance-art piece? I was not the one who did it so your repeated rantings about it make no sense at all. I suspect that you are somebody’s sock, but really don’t care anymore so rant anyway because as far as I’m concerned trolls are a simply waste of time.
Annyong!