Shockingly, Korean-Americans do not appear to be flocking to underpaid English-teaching positions in the Korean countryside. The problem? Well, you guys just don’t feel Korean enough:
Many ethnic Koreans in the United States reacted negatively to the Lee Myung-bak government’s plan to use a pool of young Korean Americans for the promotion of English education at public schools in rural areas.
On top of pay levels that are far from appealing, they said they see little merit in taking part in the program of volunteering to teach students in rural areas who have few chances to learn English from native English speakers. To attract Korean American students studying at U.S. colleges to the program, the government needs a program to instill a Korean identity into them before asking them to help rural students improve their English, according to the leader of an association of young ethnic Koreans. (emphasis mine)
Said Korean-American Youth Assistance Coalition (KAYAC) founder Lee Chung-wha:
“I am not sure how many Korean American students would apply for the program. How can our children, who don’t have a sense of Korean identity, voluntarily work for Korea?”
Well, I’d normally suggest paying them more than 1.5 million won a month, especially if you’re going to make them live in the middle of nowhere, but the answer apparently lies in correcting Korean-Americans’ “identity problems”:
KAYAC President Shin Young-soo also said that the government needs education programs teaching the Korean language, history and culture to second generation Korean Americans, who could have “identity problems.”
“Money doesn’t matter. If they have a strong sense of ethnic identity, they will extend helping hands to their homeland before they are asked,” Shin said.
And what would a discussion like this be without mentioning the Jews:
They said the government needs to learn from China, Japan and especially from Israel. “The Jewish people work hard to embrace their kindred all around the world. There are about 850 Jews in the White House, for example, and they are the power and driving force of Israel,” said Lee, who also served as president of the Korea-American Association of New York.
Not only do they control US foreign policy in the Middle East, but they make a mighty fine bagel, too.
44 Comments
Where on earth did that statistic come from?
Al Jazeera. Why do you ask?
#1, It’s in the same vein as Rhie Wonbok’s theories, so it must be true. No need to cite the source–this is Korea!
“Well, I’d normally suggest paying them more than 1.5 million won a month, especially if you’re going to make them live in the middle of nowhere..”
They can earn that much flipping burgers.
“Money doesn’t matter. If they have a strong sense of ethnic identity, they will extend helping hands to their homeland before they are asked.”
Just the kind of comment that will make Korean-Americans think twice about coming.
#2,
LOL.
Can’t believe days after watching The Borg of China foam at the mouth and run amok in Seoul they would want to invoke the Chinese diaspora as a positive example. I can see how some would envy a country that could do that, but in the Korean case we are talking about free people.
“Money doesn’t matter. If they have a strong sense of ethnic identity, they will extend helping hands to their homeland before they are asked,” Shin said.
I just spit out my milk. He can’t be serious.
“Money doesn’t matter.”
…says the guy making 6 figures in a fluff job.
Also, the “ethnic identity” racial card is Classic Crap at its finest.
I guess the catch is if we’re talking about Korean-Americans who haven’t yet graduated college. There are a bunch of proposals, and have been a bunch of news articles on different plans to attract people to rural areas. I can’t keep ‘em straight.
Interesting contrast, though: on the one hand Korean-Americans are *sarcastic voice* so valuable and so much better suited for English-teaching jobs in Korea than other foreigners, but on the other hand many parents, teachers, and students don’t take them seriously as native speakers, and thus they’re paid less, and are expected to be happy to take a low-paying gig in the middle of Chungcheongneverevenheardofthat-do.
As I pointed out on my write-up of this story, doesn’t look like the Ko-Am groups mentioned in the article are anything. Google turns up nothing, and the reporter probably just probably asked his kid’s Sunday school teacher to think up a cool name for a Ko-Am group.
I think the whole thing was just an effort to blame the Jews for a shortage of English Teachers… Heck, why not? To here some folks talk, they were responsible for tooth decay…
herehear…Ya want a Korean identity, here’s a Korean identity. There, now you have a Korean identity.
It’s those communist Jews in the Vatican that intrigue me the most, but isn’t the very need to teach the identity-less kyopo how to be Korean some kind of proof itself that Korean-ness is not simply transmitted by blood? Who would have thought…?
There’s a palpable sense of disappointment in this article: the Korean government is starting to realize that having ‘pure blood’ doesn’t mean shit. Just because they’re ethnically Korean doesn’t mean they’re going to come running when the government wants them to. Just like any other westerner, a Korean-American will look at the ad, say “crappy wage, no chance” and move on.
The idea of 우리 나라 only goes as far as the border.
“Money doesn’t matter. If they have a strong sense of ethnic identity, they will extend helping hands to their homeland before they are asked,”
I’d fire this guy in a heartbeat. Is he a carry over from Roh’s administration?
If someone’s starting a fascist party in Korea, please sign this asshole up.
“Money doesn’t matter. If they have a strong sense of ethnic identity, they will extend helping hands to their homeland before they are asked,” Shin said.
Then he cites Japan as an example to follow. Uh, right, dude. The Japanese have something called the JET Programme where foreigners are hired for $30,000 a year, get free housing, and even a g-car in some instances. The Japanese-Americans on the program have no problems with identity because the money is great.
Increase the pay, then the Koreans won’t have any identity probs.
Kor govt: Hey dude, come work work for me for next to nuthin’. It’s a cultural thing.
Koram: Fuck you.
Kor govt: What if I double your money?
Koram: Dang, homes, I be like hangukin inside and out, know what I be sayin’ mofo?
“KAYAC President Shin Young-soo also said that the government needs education programs teaching the Korean language, history and culture to second generation Korean Americans, who could have ‘identity problems.’”
If the government needs people to set up that program, I hear Robert Kim’s free…
They said the government needs to learn from China, Japan and especially from Israel. “The Jewish people work hard to embrace their kindred all around the world.
This is obviously a reference to programs like Taglit-Birthright Israel. Their mission statement reads like this:
Taglit-Birthright Israel provides the gift of first time, peer group, educational trips to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18 to 26. Taglit-Birthright Israel’s founders created this program to send thousands of young Jewish adults from all over the world to Israel as a gift in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people.
The statement of the National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP), which among other things offers crash courses in Hebrew:
The National Jewish Outreach Program was founded in 1987, by Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, in response to the urgent need to prevent the loss of Jews to Jewish life due to assimilation and lack of Jewish knowledge. NJOP, has become one of the largest and most successful Jewish outreach organizations in the world, reaches out to Jews by offering them positive, joyous, Jewish educational opportunities and experiences.
Don’t some kind of visit the homeland and rejoice in your ethnicity programs already exist for young korean-americans? Without the indentured servitude component?
HAHAHAHAHA… [this morning's coffee coming out of mouth and nose]… HAHAHAHA…
I wonder if any of these government bureaucratic and their friends who run these phantom (or maybe just real small?) Korean American groups have ever talked to real KorAms? And as others have noted, I haven’t heard of these supposed groups either. The “Korean-American Youth Assistance Coalition”? Who they?
Aside from the economic considerations, which I wholly agree with, are also softer issues that are also pretty important to us also. Yes, believe it or not, most KorAms don’t like to work with authoritarian older Koreans. Yes, we are somewhat prepared by our authoritarian, hard to please parents, but we deal with it because they are our parents. Whenever I talk to a KorAm who abruptly quit their job, all they need to tell me is that it was a “Korean company” and I give them a nod of sympathy. Surprise, surprise! KorAms don’t like that oppressive work environment any better then the average expat.
Another thing. Our parents brought us to the states (or to Canada, or Australia, or wherever) to GET US AWAY from economically underdeveloped areas. So, we are use to skyscrapers, malls, modern infrastructure (i.e. bathrooms), and BEDS! Our idea of a good time is not sleeping on the floor day in and day out in some 한옥 in the boonies. Boy, we do that when we have to visit our aunts and uncles where our parents drag us along to their trips to Korea in our childhoods. Trust me, we don’t like it. Hell, I’m sure that the average young Seoul urbanite wouldn’t like it either! Yes, I’m sure they will tough it out for a few days during the Chusok holidays, but months and months of living like that? Com’on.
You know what we do like? We like partying in Kangnam and Hongdae. The ladies like to go shopping at Apkujung. We like to use our Korean language skills to pick-up on the local talent at the clubs and haggle at the shops. When we come back to the states, we like to wax nostalgic to our buddies over a bottle of soju about how impressed the girls acted when we showed them our Uu-See-El-Aye (UCLA) or Har-bod-du (Harvard) student ID cards.
We like this stuff not because we have “issues” with our Korea identity, but because we are spoiled urbanites. I mean, look at how many of us go into Korean university summer programs. A lot. Seriously, they’d get a similar response from 20 somethings from Seoul. How many of them would like to spend 3 months to a freak’in year in countryside for $1,500k a month?
I think Hanok are pretty cool. Ondol is great to sleep on. Wish I had that in the States.
Now, just provide me with MY OWN hanok, a g-car, and up the compensation to at least 30K and I’ll consider going to the boonies for a year. Enroll me in the 국민보험 at govt expense while you’re at it.
Unless they can do that, I don’t see these guys gettin’ a lot of love from the Koram/Korcan crowd.
How many of them would like to spend 3 months to a freak’in year in countryside for $1,500k a month?
For $1500k a month, I’d gladly trade in the Wang Ja Byeong lifestyle (not that I ever indulged in such a thing) to help out the Motherland in the shigol.
Not to mention the fact that the possibility of being summarily drafted into the army of a country you didn’t even realize considered you a citizen can be pretty alienating… I know if there was the distinct possibility that I could be drafted into the army of Foreign Country X upon arrival, my first priority in life would be to stay the hell away from Foreign Country X, ancestral homeland or not.
# 19,
It’s called the Yonsei Summer Program.
I wanted to put a link in here that would describe this program perfectly, but links are not being allowed at this point for some reason.
Here are excerpts instead:
Step 1. Take a bunch of Korean Americans from many different cities around the world but especially Los Angeles and New Jersey.
Step 2. Put them in a Dorm at Yonsei University in the middle of Seoul.
Step 3. There is no step three.
Wackiness ensues. For a lot of these kids, this event occurs during the summer between High School and Harvard oops I mean college. This is the first summer many of these brainiac Asians have not had to worry about getting into college for the first time in their life. Add alcohol, drugs, clubs and an fun city straight out of Bladerunner into the mix and you get what I call good times. Most of it consisted of trying to pick up chicks with my broken Korean which makes Borat’s English sound like MetroDad’s posts.
KA Guy: Hey girl, I American. You know Hip Hop? I’m do Dancing like Running Man? Hip Hop Number 1.
Local Girl: I am a Korean Airlines.
KA Guy: Cool. Whiskey drink fun times right?
Local Girl: Your friend like me? We go fast to tomorrow?
KA Guy: Rock on. I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.
It really is unfair to unleash a group of kids onto a city with lax drinking age laws and a great public transportation system. Add the fact that most kids are loaded up with Korean “Pocket Money” from relatives that have never seen them before and you get a wicked combination. Basically its a primer on how to party like rock stars…”
How in the world is baby sitting, er, I mean teaching English in some village in Chollado suppose to compete with that???
# 22,
Okay, typo. $1.5k a month.
Don’t Korean Americans find this treatment insulting? Taglit-Birthright Israel has the good sense to provide free trips for overseas Jews as a means of strengthening their support for Israel, which has paid off handsomely in the form of a very strong American commitment to Israeli security. The Korean government, on the other hand, values the work of Korean Americans below that of foreigners. If the goal is instilling identity, then a Taglit-Birthright Israel program would be in order. The govt instead wants a ‘freebee,’ which is why the plan looks like a loser.
You know, perhaps in the sense of volunteerism, I would considering doing this. But then again, if you’re in the U.S. and you want to participate in helping with the disadvantaged w/ education, you probably already have been recruited by organizations like Teach for America.
Why travel so far away to help out when you can do it where you live? And all you need is a B.A. or B.S.
This is a classic case of Korean bureaucrats swallowing their own delusional hype. They’ve been watching their own Korea Sparkling! ads on CNN on repeat for the last year, which has led them to believe that Korea’s Sparkle is so irresistable and blinding that it will compel overseas Koreans to fill what are basically shit jobs at shit wages just to have an opportunity to see the Sparkle up close. Apparently the large gap between market value and shit wages will be filled with all kinds of Korean Sparkle and worthless certificates signed by an official Korean government Sparkler!
Fear not, naive gyopos. While other teachers in the boonies may get paid much more actual money, it’s well known that money can only buy you material objects like Ipods, TVs, pussy, and weed.
But the Sparkle you receive for your efforts will buy you things that are far more valuable and impossible to obtain with currency. I’m talking about Korean Pride, Korean Hwighting, Korean Jeong, and if you’re one of the top teachers, an extra portion of Korean Pride.
Amen, amen, bumfromkorea! Having taught in both Korea and the US, I can attest that there is a far greater need for volunteers here.
@#24:
You are spot on, Wangkon. I experienced firsthand the annual summer infestation while taking courses at the KLI.
This topic and thread in general is easily the dumbest thing i’ve seen on marmot.
But yeah the Korean govt is dreaming.
1. No one wants to work in some distant rural area.
2. Nobody is going to cross the pacific ocean for that pay.
3. Students generally want to relax during the summer not go overseas to a job that can provide little in references, job experience, pay and general satisfaction.
“You know, perhaps in the sense of volunteerism, I would considering doing this.”
They could call it AmeriKor.
# 28,
How about Korean heat (w/out a/c), Korean cicadas keeping my ass awake until 3pm, Korean screaming kids, Korean drunk ajossis and no place to hang out other then one hole-in-the wall pojangmancha to waste a few of my 1,500 won at.
I mean $1,500… or 1.5 million won.
Sorry. My wife won’t let me work for Korean businesses…
When the Korean government came up with this half-baked plan, they probably thought of Kyopos as loyal Koreans, who would come back and work for the motherland for free.
Well, now that the half-baked plan has met reality, the Korean government has realized that they are oh my gosh, Americans!
So what’s the next move?
Simple. Brainwash them into thinking that they are loyal Koreans, who would gladly work for free.
Well, not that I expect anything smart to come from the Korean government or corporations for that matter.
You sure sleep late!
I wouldn’t put much stock in that. I’m sure they’re actual groups. It’s a proven fact that as soon as two Koreans come together in one place, an association or “popular front” is formed and one of the members (the oldest one) appoints himself Chairman for life. Add a third member, and about an hour later the long-suppressed resentment over the heavy-handed and autocratic rule of the Chairman results in a splinter group being formed with the junior member of the original group as the new group’s Chairman.
This place wouldn’t be the Hole without heaping daily helpings of STFUs, but it’s nice when the occasional thread unites everyone in common disdain for the retardation of an outsider.
Time now to take Baby Linkd for her first riverside picnic. Awwwww…..
kyopos aren’t very loyal. They use South Korea for their own purposes. As long as they fill their needs, they cling to Korea. When being Korean costs something, they flee fast. This is all you really need to read, basically. The stuff below is some thoughts that may or may not make sense.
——————–
Needs may be, a place to hide money, a wife (some of these are AAA grade dwaen jang nyuhs, check out the “talents” and announcers who recently got married), real estate investments (or call it too-gee), etc.
Costs may be goondae if applicable, paying taxes in Korea, paying inheritance taxes, adjusting to a lower GDP if applicable, etc.
These people don’t even buy Hyundais and park their Japanese cars at church.
They’ll gather up in unison if the Japanese Prime Minister is dumb enough (never makes sense economically) to be blatantly putting down Korea, or if there is a Korean sporting event of interest. (the super athelete is always proof of superior genes)
These “loyal” Kyopos are very quick to forget about people like Park Chanho. Only cheer while they’re good or something.
US Kyopos won’t really be truly appreciated by motherland Koreans, for anything, ever, though. Motherland Koreans are always jealous of US Kyopos. Easier college entrance, happier teenage years, no army, the ability to buy brand name clothes cheaply, etc. To this day, motherland Koreans come to the US, and the first thing they do, is go to a clothing outlet. And fill up the truck.
Motherland Koreans also have a strange nack of having a superiority complex over Kyopos from China, Russia, etc.
The whole relationship is not very tight as it could be.
Bottom line, ROK govt should pay more, or work out a deal with the US govt, so it counts college or career advancement in the US. Or else, it’s charity work. Better to say you were in the Peace Corps, than teaching English in a developed nation.
#29,
In Canada, I’ve met too many South Korean and Japanese backpackers whose parents thought they were studying at a language institute in Vancouver to count. They study a month, make other Japanese and Korean friends, get a certificate, and then spend the next 5 backpacking across Canada together.
#39 agree
#24 funny and so true
Looks like the farmers will have to import even more brides if some of the country talent manage to get a free visa into the US with their new ‘Charity worker’ who was kind enough to offer his time to the motherland.
In the spirit of this I’d like to announce the “Would A Gyopo Please Come And Clean My Toilet For Me Movement”
You’ll be paid with a hearty handshake… assuming you’ve washed your hands afterwards… and the knowledge that you’ve done your best to keep a small part of the motherland sparkling.
Anyone? I’ll even provide the toilet brush.
# 42- Gyopos from Russia and China are already doing that… but still funny nonetheless…
# 41- I think my mom will probably find something to nit pick at if I brought over an undereducated country bumkin from Chollanamdo with that weird accent of theirs.
# 40- Similar in Los Angeles, except that the kids from Korea take all their parents money and spend it on EVEN MORE night clubs, room salons, booze and drugs. Oh, and they have those casinos at the Indian reservations too.
# 39- Hey, speak for yourself! Motherland Koreans love me!
# 38- True… true.
$ 37- It’s likely a one man shop. Ajossis state side who made enough money to retire, got bored and want to do something for the motherland. However, because they are egotistical pricks they can’t work with anyone else other then a subservient receptionist/office person. So these groups splinter so you have organizations named “Korean American Young Persons Assistance Group” and “The Korean American Young Persons Assistance Group of the North” etc. etc. Also the same with Korean churches…
@ 37 . . . Yeah, I’m not saying the groups aren’t real, just that they aren’t anything, meaning they’re not influential and they likely don’t speak for too many people. Thus this reporter is basing his story on nothing and he found a couple tangential people who may, sort of, kind of, agree with him.