“Loving and protecting your country is not just carrying a gun and going off to war. Our goal is to create an English education environment we can entrust our children to by chasing out illegal foreign teachers.”
My regular check of the English teacher police blotter turned up an interview in the Seoul Shinmun a couple of days ago with Lee Eun-ung, the leader of the website “Citizens Group or Proper English Education” (http://cafe.naver.com/englishspectrum.cafe), an online movement to expel illegal English teachers.
I feel sorry for the guy, actually. Despite his claim that the only thing they raise issue with is foreign teachers breaking the law, one could get the feeling from the piece that his actual concern — obsession, perhaps — is legal activity between consenting adults.
Shouldn’t be too hard on him, though — he’s provided this blog with plenty of good material.
Interestingly, the group claims to have gotten about 80 foreign teachers deported, arrested, fined or fired over the last four years.
If you’d like, I’ll translate it later. Or perhaps another blogger like Korea Beat or Brian will be kind enough to do it.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
What?? He couldn’t manage to get the words “gun”, “war”, and ” English teachers” into one simple sentence? Well now that’s just going to confuse the issue isn’t it?
Here is a challenge then: try getting the words “rape”, “murder”,”pedophile”, “drugs”,”criminal”, “aids”,”foreigner”, “evil”, “English teacher”,into one sentence and dispense with the vagueness created by seperating them by a period will you?
just another asshole on a mission to vent his anger and champion a cause that gets him airtime
I will go out on a limb here and assume that there is no mention of the penny-pinching (greedy) owners who actually create and sustain this market.
#3 — Nope. But he DOES mention — just to show he’s not biased — that his group also helps English teachers who’ve suffered wrong at the hands of their hagwon bosses.
Aside from going after illegal foreign teachers, I’m curious as to what they’re doing to promote a better English learning environment for Korean children. Assuming they actually give a damn.
At least they haven’t yet organized themselves into armed militias like the American Border Patrol.
Perhaps if he developed a guide for spotting illegal English teachers it might help, to wit: Do they walk funny, do they wear Brute aftershave, is there a bounty if I catch one and how much is it?
This could be more lucrative than illegal garbage videos $$$.
Why doesn’t anyone do something productive about English education in this country instead of focusing on the negatives that are a product of the system. Fix the bloody system and 90% of the crazy barbarians won’t be here.
I’m with you Mr. Geek. For the sake of argument, let’s take Lee at his word and assume he wants to improve English education, and he’s not just a racist asshole. Improving English education in Korea by going after illegal foreigners is re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But I guess it’s good, if you have passengers who refuse to acknowledge icebergs, but who have a xenophobic preoccupation with deck chairs.
Okay, perhaps not my best metaphor, but you get the idea.
#7,
Find out why Koreans learn English and role that English plays in Korean society and you’ll have your answer.
Hint: it’s not to communicate with foreigners.
Korea, combining xenophobia and sexual inadequacy since Christ played fullback for Jerusalem! How did I know this guy would be an inadequate, middle aged nobody before even seeing the video?
Xenophobia can work to your advantage.
Dear Robert,
Yes, please, if it’s not too much trouble, provide a translation.
“Find out why Koreans learn English and role that English plays in Korean society and you’ll have your answer.”
There you go with the cryptic stuff again. Why don’t you tell us?
#13,
Hint: standardized tests.
I wish he would shave that bumfluff above his lip. At his age he should know better. He’s not doing himself any favors looking that disheveled on t.v.
Then again maybe his goshiwon has no running water.
How about going after the illegal Korean teachers???
Tutoring is illegal if done under the table; taxes must be paid on this income, therefore you must have
a tax ID number to tutor. All of the local folks whom I know who tutor are not registered with the tax office.
In terms of cleaning up English education, this would be a great place to start!
Also, the hagwon owners must be held accountable for not filing taxes on behalf of their employees — K. citizen and non-citizens. A great deal of this is done without the employees knowledge!
Koreans must be held responsible for their own shortcomings in this matter.
This man quite plainly IS a racist, xenophobic, a-hole.
Robert, does he give any concrete examples of HOW he’s helped these alleged teachers who were wronged? Or does he just say it as a statement of fact to counter the racist label?
The more I think about this guy and his organization, the more disgusted I am. Going after “illegal” teachers to improve English Education is ridiculous. What he should be doing is going after BAD teachers, and maybe trying to help them get better. But I guess that’s too nuanced an endeavor for him.
If the draconian laws surrounding the E-2 visa were 100% enforced, we could kiss goodbye everything from expat news zines to “Kickin’ It in Guemchon.” English teacher rock bands? Illegal. Photo exhibitions? Illegal. Damn, even teachers meeting with Korean friends for drinks is gray area enough for deportation, if the visa laws were followed to the hilt. Korea has native-speaking teachers precisely because these restrictions are NOT enforced. Does this guy even know the laws he’s trying to enforce?
Yet he claims that he cares deeply about his goal to “create an English education environment we can entrust our children to.” Oh bullshit. The EFL Geek cares. Brian in Jeolla cares. Even that smug prick Steve “analyze my tears” Scherzter cares. But this guy? No way.
You know, if he just came out and said that either 1.) he’s concerned about lost income for middlemen arranging teachers for students, or 2.) he doesn’t like foreigners, I think I’d have more respect for him. But putting out empty, self-righteous rhetoric about patriotism and caring for Korea’s children makes him the worst kind of asshole. This man disgusts me.
End of rant.
Granfalloon, he and his group don’t go after the bad teachers because the Korean Foreign Teacher Recruiting Association goes after them.
Check out their website and read some of the lame reasons why the “bad” teachers are being blacklisted. It’s sparkling.
#8 & 18,
I’d have to say that Granfalloon is hittin’ the nail on the head with laser precision!
This guy is so concerned about the quality of English education for children? Yeah, right!
His group “helps foreign teachers who have been wronged”? Yeah, right!
This is just like the anti-American rallies in 2002 when you had these loser dipsh*ts who nobody ever heard of trying to make a name for themselves by starting a “public concern” group and getting on a microphone with the fake tears and screaming that the 2 girls who were accidentally run over are “like sisters to them”(exact quote) and their deaths must be avenged.
Bullsh*t, they don’t give 2 sh*ts about kids killed in the streets. They certainly don’t give a flying f*ck about kids killed by Koreans.
It’s just like the cows gone wild where they say they are so concerned about public safety, but don’t seem to care that Korean beef is more dangerous to eat!
This guy represents the groups of losers who don’t have good jobs(otherwise they’d be too busy) and are not getting laid (again- getting busy) so they try to fill their emptiness with vigilanteism against foreign (male) teachers who they believe are having more fun than they are.
They care not that someone who does not have a visa or teaching credentials could actually be good at their job. Conversely, a visa holding teaching credential holding teacher could absolutely suck at their job. I have met plenty of both over the years.
If this hero wannabe actually cared about quality education, then he and his group would actually be looking into which teachers are bad and abuse students, regardless of them being foreign or Korean.
It’s for certain that schools and education departments need serious help in rooting out incompetent and abusive, though legal, teachers. They have shown they can’t do it themselves.
To sum it up, this guy is a loser who wants to be some kind of hero. This is his dumb idea to fulfil his dream!
이은웅 – Gramps was apparently inspired by a cat coughing up a fur ball.
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