Police are investigating a 41-year-old Canadian English teacher in Seong-dong, Seoul after parents filed a complaint that he’d molested three little girls, reports YTN.
According to the police, the parents complained the teacher molested the girls — all in the first grade of elementary school — at a local government-run English class in October of last year. The parents claim he molested the girls several times, sitting them on his knee and touching them.
The police have placed a travel ban on the teacher, according to the report.
{ 81 comments… read them below or add one }
*sigh*
What!? You mean there is a possibility that an ACTUAL E2 visa holder has committed an offense?
1 out of how many thousand?
get your finger-pointing hate on because when it rains, it pours in Korea, Sparkling!
And he’s Canadian!
Damn! Just for the rest of us and all those Korean little kids, how about all you would be Canadian pedophiles out there, take a little hiatus.
Or, if you’re gonna do it because it is a biological imperative, do it outside of Korea. Follow the “Swirly-face”‘s example.
I really wish they stop letting these stay at home moms watch “Law & Order SVU” all day with the kids. This is what happens when you try to use dramas to teach English.
WTF is it with these guys, anyway?
Maybe the guy diddled them, but there IS the chance that some mom is over-reacting.
The article is so vague about where he touched them, too.
And it’s just a charge, not a conviction.
Fuck, I don’t like this. Koreans will start looking at us like molesters, and idiot foreigners will jump on the bandwagon too.
1 accusation, maybe. 3 accusations?
Seth Gecko, I hate to break it to you, but we’ve been looked at differently and treated differently since the day we arrived.
It was a hard thing for me to get over, but after years of fighting it, i came to terms with it and just accept it as part of “sparkling korea”.
molesting teachers are an annual event. there should be a festival.seems to be a festival for everything else. we could have a big witch-burning. pick the creepy guys from work and light ‘em up. koreans would see it as being pro-active and leave us alone for at least another year until they demanded another sacrifice…can anyone bring balloons?
pardon me; i meant “Korea Sparkling!”
If this is true, the guy deserves whatever he gets, but if it isn’t, what a nightmare this must be.
In my 2nd year here, some 4 years ago now, I saw a similar thing play out with a co-teacher. A middle school kid complained to her mother that the guy had groped her butt after giving her hell in an empty classroom for disturbing his class, and so she wanted to quit.
The mother came to the school threatening to call the police if the guy wasn’t fired, and the director complied, no doubt scared for the school rep. A couple of days later, a boy in the same class came to the director saying he had overheard some girls talking about it, and it was not true. The director contacted the parent, who then confronted the kid. She then confessed that she just said that because she didn’t like the teacher or the class, and didn’t want to go there anymore.
Thinking he was coming to pick up his pay before leaving, the guy found himself being apologized to by an embarrassed mother and a crying child. He took his job back, but I don’t think I would have.
I always wonder what would have happened were it not for the boy who blew the whistle. In the present case, as I say, I have no idea whether the molestation claim is valid, but the fact that several kids made the claim, by itself, doesn’t make it true.
It will be interesting to see if this turns out to be a witch hunt or the real deal. Either way, I guess it isn’t doing any of us any good.
LOL
Foreign teachers have been molesting Korean children for a quarter century, as seen in the legendary 1984 movie Between the Knees. Lee Bo-Hui…nyum, nyum, nyum.
Did the article say what visa he was on? We will have to see if he already had a criminal record. One commenter noted before that these “problem teachers” pop up during vacation time and not when people are still in school. I mean how could he be working still if this was a problem in October! He could be hurting kids still. A drunken bum filed a complaint and Metropolitician was dragged down immediately to the police station for fingerprints. It makes me wonder what is really going on.
I hate to say it, but I really am starting to notice a bit of a pattern too. I mean, not saying that stuff is *made up*, but Police seem to wait to act on it, especially in the case of drug charges. Drug charges always seem to be in September and April.
I’m guessing it’s BS. Total double-standards — Korean teachers are always popping the kids on in their laps. My one co-worker used to have middle-school boys sit on her lap and hug and kiss them on the cheeks. All of us foreign teachers thought it was pretty strange and the US it could defintely be seen as sexual harrassment.
I was surprised myself at how the little buggers come running up to you and hop on your lap.
Here’s an interesting story that just happened a couple weeks ago at a kindy where my girlfriend works. First, they had an entire day with the kindy kids–teaching them about child molestation. That’s right–a special teacher came in and told them, explicitly, what kind of touching from an adult was okay and what was not okay. And they even taught them how to say “NO.” Really…they had a kind of role play session with fake touching, preceded, of course, by a kind of perverted puppet show.
Sure enough, about a week later, using the new vocabulary she had learned, one of the kids accuses the foreign teacher of molesting her. So, the parents come and throw a fit at the hagwon. The teacher comes to work and is blindsided by these accusations. Luckily for him, they had CCTV in his classroom (note to those of you who complain about being filmed). The tapes clearly showed that he never touched the child. She simply wanted a bit of attention, and later admitted it.
You males who teach little kids, seriously, are taking a big risk with your freedom. It won’t be long, I imagine, before one of these witch hunts turns into major jail time for some sorry bastard who came her to “explore the world.”
Be careful!!
Not saying that the charges are unsubstantiated,
but, like the above fellow-poster, I too see
a pattern with such issues involving foreign teachers
in the media. Anyone else ever notice how such issues become an issue whenever the KTU is upset about something–usually also having to do with non-Korean teachers and their employment by the government????
So, my question, is there anything brewing with the KTU at present in this regard? (I’ve been out of the well)
This dude very well may be a total perv, but I’ve learned to be very suspicious of such issues.
Not a good day for Canadians. Their geese are being blamed for bringing down that jet in New York.
The difference being that (1) A GOOD MANY of them do not have criminal records or carry infectious diseases, and besides (2) they do it out of love for their students
robert, are you sure this qualifies for the stupid foreigner tricks category?
Per #12 — what “Pohang” wrote is a very astute observation and question.
Much of the Korean educational system is overrun by the business of education, where making money is the goal and not qualitative education. Though abuse can occur in any environment (and does), the combination of “money-first” education and management that really has no background in education other than running a business that peddles education, is an open invitation for any number of abuses, all of which spell “disaster” for any foreign educator, who is already at a disadvantage in Korea’s legal system. I will not comment upon what further harm comes to foreign teachers when the myopic gaze of Korean media rests upon them either; this is proverbial legend already.
IMHO, the real story is how the educational system in Korea (mis)handle these problems and others, rather than how many Canadian teachers molest children. The DLP is already recruiting its future members from the hoards of disgruntled students who can not fit into the dysfunctional education system in Korea. Just like radical Islam, the DLP will take in these new members and use them politically because the system has largely failed in how it addresses education and how the ministry has allowed commerce-focused elements to affect the whole of the system. Additionally, the KTEWU (Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union) has promoted some of the worst trends in education, making such problems worse.
The issue of education, in Korea, is one big ticking bomb that is waiting for just the right conjunction of toxic events to set it off.
There is nothing wrong with sitting a little girl on your knee; Santa does it all the time, so this could just be a big misunderstanding or some kind of frame. Besides, what is there to grope?
At the same time, a couple of years ago, I was in a Manila Internet Cafe sitting next to some old white guy. The Internet speeds in Manila were not very fast, so while I was waiting for a page to load, I happened to glance over at the old guy’s screen and noticed that he was looking at a very graphic and colorful kiddy-porn site. The guy must have been 75 years old, at least, and he was looking at naked kids who were as young as four or five years old, and was making no attempt, whatsoever, to hide his perversion. People were walking back and forth behind him, but he just kept looking through the pages at the site.
The incident made me suspect that child molesters are somehow mentally incapabable of recognizing how sick their actions are, which causes them to do stupid things.
Molesting first-grade girls in a classroom is not only sick but stupid since the chances of getting caught are high. However, child molesters seem to be pretty stupid and seem to have no sense of guilt.
If the guy was really molesting the little girls, I hope he spends the rest of his life eating kimchi and rice in a cold Korean jail cell because I do not think child molesters can be rehabilitated.
My mother taught in public elementary school for 18 years in the US. One of her most disruptive students was…being disruptive and my mother put her hand on the child’s head to get her attention. The child went home and screamed of abuse. As soon as the other kids heard of what the student said, they all chimed in about how the teacher had ‘hit’ ‘punched’ ‘slapped’ and the girl. 25 willing witnesses~
As for the news it does comes in groups. After one bridge collapses then suddenly multiple bridges are being reported on.
There is a school yard shooting and suddenly the news is talking about threats at schools (nothing new but suddenly ‘news worthy’). I forgot who said it but the quote is roughly “It’s amazing how every night there is exactly 30 minutes of news.”
1 week, three posts about (possible) child molesting. I’m glad this week is over and looking forward to something juicier.
Or maybe…just MAYBE, the problem simply is that there are just too foreigner pervs working as teachers. Ever think of that?
Nah, can’t be. The fault is really with the Korean system. Everything else is to blame except for the perp himself. Blah blah blah…same ole shit.
#22 wrote IMHO, the real story is how the educational system in Korea (mis)handle these problems and others, rather than how many Canadian teachers molest children.
Remember Cho Seung hui and the VTech massacre? Imagine if myself or other Korean-Americans went around saying: the real problem is not that this kid shoot all his fellow classmates. The blame falls on the American school system, the American gun culture, and American society itself in general. Do you know what other Americans will say to me? Then go back to your fucking country you dumb gook.
So much mental gymnastics being expended here to defend the indefensible. Amazing.
Gerry, thank John Ashcroft.
Sexual perversion exists in many ways.
Ashcroft wisely banned one that the majority of Americans can still agree on as a group.
Why is it legal to look at a photo of a woman fucking a dog, on the US internet? Why?
#24,
Your story reminds me of something that occurred when I was in elementary school. Our school was located next to a church, separated from it by it’s rather large cemetery. Some girls in my class swore that a creepy old man had approached them while they were in the cemetery. Next thing we know, dozens of girls swore they saw the same old man. The cops were eventually called, made sure to park the cruiser where kids could clearly see it during recess. We never heard about the creepy old man again. What I never understood until I was older is how the girls could have gotten in the cemetery in the first place. You see, before class and during every recess, my friends and I played by the only hole in the fence connecting the schoolyard to the cemetery. Had the girls gone in the cemetery, we would have seen them. Seems obvious to me now that it case of mass hysteria.
its
it was a case
The family said that when they brought Cho Seung Hui to America he was already troubled.
#23,
Since they can rarely be rehabilitated, simply putting them in jail probably doesn’t suffice.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1778
“Why is it legal to look at a photo of a woman fucking a dog, on the US internet? Why?”
Photos of women having sex with dogs?
I’ll take your word for it.
Or maybe…just MAYBE, the problem simply is that there are just too foreigner pervs working as teachers. Ever think of that?
Sure, but since there are no stats or figures to back this up, maybe…just MAYBE, the problem simply is that there are just too many Koreans like yourself who think that foreigners are more perverted than they are, for no good reason.
Actually, I don’t blame you Netizen; you might even think you’ve come to the above conclusions on your own, but my guess is you’ve been subtly (though not deliberatly) indoctrinated by your own tribe to think that way since you were a wee kid.
Koreans have believed they are innately morally
superior to westerners since before Chosun. It was all part of the package fed to your ancestors to explain away their isolation when Korea was the world’s hermit. You can still see it in its root form in North Korea:
South Koreans may chuckle at the personality cult, but they generally agree with Pyongyang that Koreans are a pure-blooded race whose innate goodness has made them the perennial victims of rapacious foreigners. They share the same tendency to regard Koreans as innocent children on the world stage–and to ascribe evil to foreigners alone… (B.R. Meyers)
That mythology is still alive and well in the ROK, and in the KA community too, clearly. Doesn’t mean it’s true. Actually, Koreans are developing a particularly nasty rep for exporting sex tourists with a bent for underage girls in the Pacific, SE asia, the PRC, Mongolia etc. Ie,
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200507/200507060009.html
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/298846.html
I have also seen Korean female teachers behaving and talking inappropriately with/about 6th grade boys….it was disturbing to say the least.
And yes, I have met plenty of western teachers who I wouldn’t want teaching my kids for a variety of reasons.
Korean or western, these people should not be teaching. But I just hate the antio foreigner finger pointing and witchhunts. During the whole English spectrum fiasco a couple of years back, my ass nearly got fired. Not because I’d done anything, but because so many parents phoned up threatening to pull their kids out, away from the foreign pervert (you see, we’re all the same). They were only reassured and my job saved when they were told that I had a nice white girlfriend and was no threat to their kids.
It’s not a foreigner issue. It’s a perv issue. There are plenty of Korean teachers who are just as pervvy and/or abusive. None of them, Korean or foreign, should be teaching.
Well, obviously, nobody wants to defend a child molester. But the ire you hear about Koreans on this thread is not so much because Koreans cause this sort of thing to happen. People who say that are stupid. It’s more about how we foreigners can expect to happen in the aftermath. We get a little tired of being spat on, literally, because of who happened to be the news recently. Because of some Canadian I’ve never met, I might not be able to get a taxi home tonight. And that sucks.
For the record, plenty of people were asking those exact questions in comment #26 after the Virginia Tech massacre. I guess maybe Koreans missed that part because they were hiding from a backlash that never actually happened.
“Remember Cho Seung hui and the VTech massacre? Imagine if myself or other Korean-Americans went around saying: the real problem is not that this kid shoot all his fellow classmates. The blame falls on the American school system, the American gun culture, and American society itself in general. Do you know what other Americans will say to me? Then go back to your fucking country you dumb gook.”
Actually I did hear some about how american culture was the real culprit,blame was also placed on bureaucratic organization, and the mental health system. I did not hear anyone ever try to blame anything on him being a korean though, nor do I remember blowback against the Korean community. I know a lot of Koreans were worried about it because that is what they would have done if the situation was reversed, but it did not happen.
Maybe you don’t read the newspapers much, but people DO say this every time there is a school shooting.
And just as VTech had nothing to do with Cho being Korean, these events in Korea have nothing to do with the teachers being foreign.
Netizen Kim: “Or maybe…just MAYBE, the problem simply is that there are just too foreigner pervs working as teachers. Ever think of that? Nah, can’t be. The fault is really with the Korean system.”
A good example of a hasty generalization fallacy – extrapolating a general trend from an isolated incident would certainly be a fallacious conclusion.
However, given the numerous faults of the Korean system, the above statement is almost certainly the case.
I have sock puppets all over the place.
“If the guy was really molesting the little girls, I hope he spends the rest of his life eating kimchi and rice in a cold Korean jail cell because I do not think child molesters can be rehabilitated.”
Perhaps because no real effort to rehabilitate has ever been undertaken. It’s much easier for people get their rocks off expressing moral indignation at what is essentially a mental health issue. Pedofiles can and have been rehabilitated – it’s just that we’d rather have something to get worked up about, so we sweep the issue under the rug.
Child abuse has become one of those kneejerk issues that causes brains to shut down en masse and the Neanderthal to emerge from the recesses of the psyche. Suddenly all reason shuts down and we return to a 17th Century witchunt in which all sorts of category errors become sanctionsed. For instance, in Korea, the crime is falsely attributed on someone’s nationality. Inside and outside Korea public outrage typically results in a kangaroo court to assauge public opinion and the problem itself goes unsolved.
The erroneous focus on foreign contageon practically assures that the more widespread problem of child abuse perpetrated by Korean nationals will again be swept under the rug.
# 39
I almost totally agreed with you. What I don’t agree with is that…” And just as VTech had nothing to do with Cho being Korean.”
He was known to be a bit CRAZY/BABO, in S. Korea. That is a fact. He was known/remembered while living in S. Korea as a tad bit WACKO. His parents CHOOSE to ignore this fact like MOST Korean parents.
Korean(s)/Parents will do ANYTHING so that their child is NOT classified even an itsy bitsy bit different. Yes, this could happen with any American family but I’d put my money on the Korean(per capita) neglecting/ignoring their child in this situation.
Can anyone imagine how the typical Korean family would have handled a child like Jett Travolta?
Mizar wrote (#42):
Any suggestions on how you rehabilitate a child molester?
I suggest electric shock therapy, where an electric battery is connected to the molester’s balls. Then a series of pictures of children in swimsuits is shown to the molester. If the molester starts to get a hard-on, then he is zapped. If he can go 10,000 sessions without getting a hard-on, then he can be judged as being rehabilitated and released from prison.
Of course, in states like California and Massachusetts, the molester may have to pass only one session.
By the way, Mizar, what part of California are you from?
“Remember Cho Seung hui and the VTech massacre? Imagine if myself or other Korean-Americans went around saying: the real problem is not that this kid shoot all his fellow classmates. The blame falls on the American school system, the American gun culture, and American society itself in general”
People would reply, “Yeah…and your point is?” or maybe, “I saw ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′, too.”
In any case, what do you make of Woo Bum-kun? Officially, he left 58 dead and 35 injured…but I’ve read the real numbers are higher.
“I suggest electric shock therapy, where an electric battery is connected to the molester’s balls. Then a series of pictures of children in swimsuits is shown to the molester. If the molester starts to get a hard-on, then he is zapped.”
Hardly a novel idea.
Look up ‘aversion therapy’ and ‘penile plethysmograph’ (aka, the ‘erectometer’) on Wikipedia.
Damned Canucks! Always fucking it up for the rest of us.
You are not thoughtful at all and only pick at bark when there is a whole tree in front you.
There really is not a big problem with Canadian teachers doing bad things in local government-run English classes. I’m living here and benefit from a close-up view of many different perspectives — from kids to parents, teachers and several lower-level government administrators. Considering the general state of education in Korea, there are far more important educational and political issues at stake and I have listed just a few that could possibly be harbingers of a worse future.
When I was in high school, we had a physics teacher named Peter Melzer. Later, when I was in college I read in the papers that Mr Melzer was found to be a closet pedophile, being investigated by Eliot Spitzer, who was a prosecuting attorney at the time. He was a member of NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association). He would take trips to places like Thailand and Cambodia. I don’t think I have to spell out what that might have been about.
This was a highly publicized news item at the time. There were TV movies depicting a teacher who seemed like fine upstanding normal person on the surface but turned out to be a molester. Educational administrators, the board, and the FBI used the Melzer case as an example to send a message throughout the school system. And just like you guys, Melzer thought he was being persecuted, treated unfairly, not understood, etc.
As you expats love to point out regularly, the hagwon system is very poorly regulated. Korean immigration is a sloppy, incompetent bureaucracy. Korean police are largely a bunch of inept Keystone Kops. This is all very true. It is also the kind of environment that would attract lots of potential Peter Melzers.
But blaming the “Korean system” for the influx of perverted waegooks is like blaming the Incas for not having the immune system to fight off smallpox disease introduced by the Conquistadors.
“But blaming the “Korean system” for the influx of perverted waegooks is like blaming the Incas for not having the immune system to fight off smallpox disease introduced by the Conquistadors.”
Nonsence, but this is yet another wonderful example of flawed logic, known as petitio principii, circulus in probando, arguing in a circle, assuming the answer, or, most commonly, begging the question.
The above argument is a fallacy of deductive reasoning in which the proposition to be proved is assumed in one of the premises. Such an argument is fallacious because it relies upon its own proposition (in this case, the hypothetical “influx of perverted waegooks” to support its central premise. Essentially, the argument assumes that its central point is already proven, and uses this in support of itself – circular logic.
Insofar as influx refers to the arrival of many people or things, there is no evidence that there are more perverted waegooks than perverted Koreans, and given the foreigner to national ratio, this would be a statistically improbable over-generalized claim.
Netizen Kim, you’re making this too easy.
“And just like you guys, Melzer thought he was being persecuted, treated unfairly, not understood, etc.”
That’s insulting and borderline racist.
“But blaming the “Korean system” for the influx of perverted waegooks is like blaming the Incas for not having the immune system to fight off smallpox disease introduced by the Conquistadors.”
Influx? A couple of guys out of what is now a sizable population demographic hardly consists the influx that you suggest.
I will also add that the problems within the Korean school system dealing with pedo-pedagogy have to be addressed. One of the ways to do this is to publicize cases of child molesters in the media and raise awareness. Will this lead to stereotyping of waegooks in Korea? Perhaps.
But we minorities in America have been dealing with unfair stereotyping by the mainstream for decades now, something which you guys only started experiencing when you came to Korea. As someone like Bill Cosby would say to his fellow Blacks, “sometimes we gotta start taking responsibility for ill within our own community and stop blaming the White Man for everything that’s wrong with us.” This would apply to you waegooks in Korea as well, forever blaming everything, even your own crimes, on the Yellow Man.
gbevers: “Any suggestions on how you rehabilitate a child molester? I suggest electric shock therapy… Of course, in states like California and Massachusetts, the molester may have to pass only one session…By the way, Mizar, what part of California are you from?”
I’m not the one teaching English in Korea, bevers.
“This would apply to you waegooks in Korea as well, forever blaming everything, even your own crimes, on the Yellow Man.”
Wow, somehow you’ve managed to warp this fallacious generalization into a racial argument. You win the prize for juxtiposing two overemotional issues – pedaphilia and race – into a single fuzzy logic bomb.
When do you intend to present a valid argument?
“But we minorities in America have been dealing with unfair stereotyping by the mainstream for decades now, something which you guys only started experiencing when you came to Korea.”
Take it from one minority member who does not indulge is pathetically indulgent self-pity. EVERYONE from white males to black females is unfairly stereotyped, and this appeal to emotion is yet another falacious argument, a strawman and a red herring.
So far you have asserted or implied but failed to support that a single, unproven accusation suggests that there are a disproportionate number of sex offenders among ESL teachers in Korea, that ESL teachers who object to being unfairly defamed are racist, and that neither xenophobia nor the Korean education system are factors in this story.
What does it take for some people to deal with a matter in a factual, unemotional manner?
“It is also the kind of environment that would attract lots of potential Peter Melzers.”
This is a kernel of truth in an other-wise off-point series of NK posts that argued against “expat” arguments that nobody was making. Pedos do look for lax places to do their thing.
In a weird way, however, maybe Korea can gain some defence against any influx of pedos from its fearsome reputation for mass hysteria, irresponsible, unethical journalism and no-justice-for-outsiders legal system. It’s no fun running afoul of the law in any country, but extra scary when everything is so clearly stacked against you from the start.
At the expense of being self-indulgent, let me also address the fallacious analogy suggesting that ESL teachers must “start taking responsibility for ill within [their] own community.”
What community is this?
Can a single allegation against an individual for which there is no evidence of any particular trend logically be considered a general ill for which unrelated individuals need to assume some sort of responsibility?
What evidence do you have to suggest that the vast majority of foreign ESL teachers have not comported themselves admirably?
Look, I’m not a foreign ESL teacher in Korea, so I have no skin in this game. But neither am I someone who would indulge in character assassination without justification. Much as I enjoy this sort of fun banter, a part of me wonders whether you’re deliberately taking a perverse view simply to engage my superior intellect.
Much as I enjoy this sort of fun banter, a part of me wonders whether you’re deliberately taking a perverse view simply to engage my superior intellect.
Thanks Mizar. I needed the laugh.
You’re welcome. Laughter is a good initial response. But you still have much homework to do.
I don’t have to imagine because as a teacher, I’ve actually met disabled Korean students. Two were blind, one used a wheelchair, and one had a tick. These students were successful learners who enjoyed strong love and support from their families.
Ironic that you should bring up Jett Travolta since there were whispers in the media about how his seizures weren’t caused by Kawasaki Syndrome and how his Scientologist parents might have overlooked the possibility he was autistic since their religion does not recognize psychological illnesses.
Time for story! About 15 years ago I worked with another Western teacher who taught, of all things, art, in an elementary school near the old Chinatown. Specifically oil painting, I have no idea why they’d pay for that, maybe the guy was getting a discount or maybe that stuff looked sophisticated.
Anyway, one day when I finished early, I paid “Mr. Andy’s” class a visit to check out some of the work and perhaps pick up a few tips of my own if I ever did drugs and felt like painting. There was this kid, probably about 8 years old, who had painted a very good painting of fruits and a potted plant, who brought it over to him so he could put it away, and as he looked over it and set it down, smiled to the kid and said, very good now go clean up. Except… right after he said that, and I shit you not, he patted the little boys crotch as if it was his back and shooed him away.
Having never really seen a dude purposely reaching to another male’s loins, I was just thinking “wtf just happened…did I see right?” Didn’t even know what to say at first. Finally I blurted out to him awkwardly, “Hey man, you shouldn’t touch the kids nuts, that ain’t right”. He looked at me as if I was the weirdo, went over to the kid, brought him back, and asked him in Korean, “that’s ok right?” (Sorry haven’t got korean typing installed, said ghen chan chi?).
Kid looks at me, mumbles, “unh”, then scampers off.
Andy just tells me, “see, it’s alright, don’t be so uptight, just being friendly with the kid”.
Mentioned it to a Korea teacher who I had lunch with, and he just thought if he’s not hurting the kid, it’s fine, it’s just a boy.
Andy went back to wherever he came after school was up, I did the gig for about a year and half more, and let’s just say that characters like Andy were definitely around and noticeable. Fuckin’ shady guys, and it wasn’t just in Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, probably every East Asian nation has a definite higher proportion of these weirdos.
I’m not trying to say that foreign teachers are bad, most were normal guys who just like traveling, and yeah, banging asian girls. Just that…the ratio was higher for these pedos hanging around, and I’m honestly surprised that there aren’t more of these stories for these papers to jump on.
er, should have added he crotch patted him again before he asked if it was ok, hand cupped and all :/ dunno how that got erased
Careful Dry, Mizar5 will use your story to slam Koreans again even if the story was about a pedophile Western teacher.
#59. How do typical Korean families deal with psychological problems in their children?
Nah, JK, only hypocrites and scoundrals and have anything to fear from the dispassionate scapel of Mizar’s logic.
Dry is merely relating his anecdotal experience in an honest and sincere way without resorting to any broad brushing or rhetorical trickery.
The truth cuts both ways, so you might as well learn to embrace it without personal bias.
#59 Sonagi.
My school only recently got a dedicated education support centre, previously we had an untrained graduate of something or other who used to actualyy get into physical fights with the kids she dealt with (she started them!). I’m sure her lack of training and the fact that there didn’t seem to be a rigorous selection procedure, rather she was cheap and available.
We’ve now got a smashing, brand new, fully kitted out classroom, with two extremely dedicated, competent and above all, trained teachers. They do wonders with the, er,5 kids they help. Out of a school poulation of 2000. In a school where I am often left alone with badly affected kids (autism, behavioural disorders, downs syndrome). I would say that there is an avareage of 5 or 6 kids with issues per grade, and in th whole school, a similar number of the kids shouldn’t even be in mainstream education. Problem is that the parents have to acknowledge their kid has an issue, get them tested and then voluntarily put them forward for the special ed classes.
So for the three disabled Korean kids you met, with the full and loving support of their families, there are a huge number out there, not receiving the treatment they deserve. They are not learning to their full potential, being taught in an environment where untrained foreign and Korean teachers alike are left to it, with often violent, unreachable kids. (As it happens, the girl with downs syndrome regularly gets whacked by her homeroom teacher).
Would be interested in your feedback, what would you say, if any are teh reasons that these parents don’t get the help their children so obviously require?
1) lack of awareness of special needs
2) lack of awareness of educational alternatives
3) lack of educational alternatives period
Even with all our special education regulations and programs, we still have kids who do not get services because they cannot qualify through testing. For example, there are gap kids with IQs just above the mentally retarded cutoff of 80. There are other kids who clearly have thinking/processing/retention deficits but do not qualify as learning disabled because they perform poorly in everything. True LDs show high scores in some areas and low in others. Getting children from non-English speaking homes to qualify for SPED services is even more rigorous because testing must first rule out that English language proficiency is the reason for low academic performance.
Seclusion rooms in which out-of-control kids are isolated have become controversial because kids have injured themselves and a few have committed suicide. Our school has detained violent children in a separate room but ALWAYS with an adult present.
Overall, the US is much more progressive than Korea in the areas of special education and non-violent discipline, but the US is also a nation with GREAT disparities in education. Next time you’re in the mood for horror, you can save a dollar on the DVD rental and go check out postings about large urban districts on the teacher chatboards at http://www.teachers.net. Prince Georges County Public Schools just outside DC in Maryland is a good place to start. I would become a greeter at Wal-Mart before I would step foot in one of their schools.
Dry (#60),
Your story reinforces my suspicion that many child molesters do not think of themselves as having a problem.
I suspect that to a child molester, being attracted to children is as natural as heterosexuals being attracted to the opposite sex and homosexuals being attracted to the same sex. In other words, the world is made of heterophiles, homophiles, pedophiles, and a few other more exotic -philes.
That would mean that pedophilia is not a mental health problem, but is just the way people are born. In other words, it is not something you can cure since it would be like trying to cure the attraction a heterosexual male has for women or a homosexual male has for men.
The problem for a pedophile, however, is that his or her attraction for children is illegal because of laws that set the age of consent at ages above those that a pedophile is attracted to. In other words, pedophiles are screwed in our society, similar to how homosexuals used to be. In that regard, maybe pedophiles deserve our pity since their attraction for children may be an innate attraction that they have little or no control over.
However, in order to protect our children, pedophiles who cross the line and engage in inappropriate behavior with underage children need to be segregated from children, and repeat offenders need to be segregated permanently.
I am confused, Sonagi, are you talking about the USA or Korea?
Koreans were worried about it and I don’t know about them but I know why Korean Americans were worried about it. And I’ll tell you that pretty much every minority group in America was worried about it too. The fear of backlash or some other social or cultural repercussion was nothing exclusive to Koreans. Thus, the whiny-expat meme of “Look! Koreans are projecting!” just doesn’t work. And we are talking about Korean Americans, right? Why would it be likely for Koreans living in America to project what they would do to whiny expats in Korea? Doesn’t make sense.
Anyway, I experienced no backlash but I recall reading a thread on a board where Asian American teenagers post. Members there posted their experiences in April and May and there the backlash was made evident enough. When you have people vandalizing your property or bullying you at school because you’re Asian or Korean, then I’d consider that a backlash. It’s the same type of harassment you wayguk are so afraid of in Korea. Nothing news worthy, of course — though it becomes the stuff of 6 page-long blog entries and 100+ comment threads in the webpages around here.
In fairness, America’s mainstream media did handle Vtech well enough — though some would disagree with me. In the converse, in the event of wayguk doing something monumentally heinous on Korean soil, Korea’s media would have had Koreans rounding up every wayguk in sight and burning them at a stake. Koreans are such bumpkins that way.
But if we want to see what people really think and feel, the internet is much more informative. Merely type in Cho Seung Hee on youtube and you will surely see racialism tying Cho’s viscious behavior with his Korean ethnicity. We can wager on it. Let’s see if we can’t find at least 5 different accounts on youtube aiming to accomplish such a link. I’d bet also that we can find at least 5 regulars here at Marmot’s who have brought up Cho as a put down aimed at all Korean at least once throughout their post logs since Vtech. I’m sure there are enough dipshits here to fit that bill.
It’s really interesting also to see Chinese trolls still mentioning Cho. Whenever they do, one can, if only to shut those trolls up, refer to that Chinese Canadian loony who randomly decapitated that guy on the bus a few months ago. Que sera sera and, uh, a tu quo que, eh?
@Scotty:
Points 1-3 were in response to your question apparently about Korean schools. The other paragraphs were about US schools; the flag next to my username shows correctly that I live in the US, hence the use of the words “we” and “our” when talking about American schools.
“But we minorities in America have been dealing with unfair stereotyping by the mainstream for decades now, something which you guys only started experiencing when you came to Korea.”
You have no idea how far off the mark you are. Decades? Poor you. My ancestors were victims of two genocides in the last 400 years…in North America.
Stereotypes? I won’t even clearly define my ethnic background because I know the first thing that will come to your mind are the stereotypes.
“I don’t have to imagine because as a teacher, I’ve actually met disabled Korean students. ”
So have I. Just off the top of my head, I’ve had a couple of students who were hearing impaired and one who had Parkinson’s (We all loved him. He was smart, humorous, and outgoing. He was truly inspirational to all of us. He’s one of those few students who ends up teaching you more than you teach him).
“The fear of backlash or some other social or cultural repercussion was nothing exclusive to Koreans.”
Ironically, Americans are becoming more aware of Korean culture, or at least Korean-American culture.
Sonagi
Thanks, just wanted to clear that up, I suspected that you were in the US, but was unsure whether or not the three points were pertaining to Korea, and were they speculation or fact…still unsure on that.
I agree that those three points may be entirely true, but I would add a 4th point: stigma.
One of our most disturbed students had to be dragged off, by me, his incapable, unqualified, untrained, incompetent ‘special needs’ teacher. He was punching, screaming and kicking and was in that state as I had sat and watched her goad and taunt him into the assault. It was one of Jun’s days where he wasn’t in the mood and she was not standing for this, so basically started bullying him. Anyway, it all ended up with his mother having to come to school and make a grovelling apology to the teacher. I stayed out of it despite knowing what had really occurred, as in the past my attempts at stating the truth have gone down like the proverbial lead balloon.
So the lesson is that if you acknowledge that your kid has problems, Korean schools seem fairly incapable of dealing with them. I know our school has made leaps and bounds and now would seem equipped, but I wonder if knowing that your child’s actions will bring shame on you and your family are a deterrent to seeking out suitable care? And don’t forget, it wasn’t that long ago, I hear, that mentally disabled people were kept chained up indoors in this country…
Um, it’s not. Bestiality in any form is illegal in the US.
As you just pointed out, he was a whackjob, and he shot up VTech because he was a whackjob. He did not shoot the place up because he was Korean. So my point stands: As VTech had nothing to do with Cho being Korean, the foreign pedos being caught in Korea have nothing to do with being foreign.
“That would mean that pedophilia is not a mental health problem, but is just the way people are born. In other words, it is not something you can cure since it would be like trying to cure the attraction a heterosexual male has for women or a homosexual male has for men.”
Nonsense. That is entirely supposition and does not appear to represent prevailing opinion on the subject. Amazing how people can jump to such illogical conclusion as this without a scintilla of research on the subject.
Fan death redex.
“However, in order to protect our children, pedophiles who cross the line and engage in inappropriate behavior with underage children need to be segregated from children, and repeat offenders need to be segregated permanently.”
Here you have my agreement. However, I believe that sex offenders can and should be treated as this is not only a criminal issue but a psychological one as well.
One of the problems with psychology in the US is that they tend to try to medicate away psychological problems which only “works” when the offender is on his meds. Another is that while offenders know they are doing wrong, they suffer from an obsessive compulsive disorder and are not encouraged to seek help.
You both seem to be targeting white folk.
Mizar (#76),
There is no cure for pedophilia, just as there is no cure for homophilia or heterophilia. LINK
Homophilia used to also be viewed as a mental illness rather than sexual orientation. LINK
I understand that there are many pedophiliacs who worship children from afar but would never dream of touching one inappropriately. Nobokov’s Humbert Humbert is modeled on this type of “benign pedophiliac”, (not that he was a praiseworthy character).
In fact, one might say that child worship is the norm. It sometimes seems to me that we are obsessed with the welfare of children but that once they grow up society often cares little about them. Even incorrigible children may be looked upon sympathetically whereas we tend to judge adults much more harshly.
As for whether pedophilia is curable, I find it interesting that bevers’ link pronounces it incurable and yet states that the causes are unknown. I believe that it is a case of nurture rather than nurture, and as a practical Buddhist (as opposed to a soteriological-oriented one) I have to believe that the mind can respond to dicipline and that to declare pedophilia incurable is oversimplistic.
Studies have shown that humans are naturally attracted to youthful features, but this does not have to result in child molestation. Just as Kinsky found that there are varying degrees of homosexual orientation, this would logically apply to pedophilia as well.
Some pedophiles may well be incurable, while others may present no problem whatsoever, based on such variables as the degree of the orientation, sex drive, self discipline, the general state of their mental health, availability of an outlet for sexual urges, etc.
One problem in American society involves the generally puritanical attitude toward sex – Victorian repression tends to feed sexual tension. In Asian societies, there is usually a ready outlet for the release of sexual tension that is greately lacking in American society where prostitution is not as prevalent, driven underground and marginalized. There doesn’t appear to be much of an outlet for unpopular or socially isolated individuals.
For sexual offenders, there are ways of monitoring behavior and mitigating the sexual urge. But if we are to make a dent in the problem of criminal pedophilia, I believe that we have got to provide an incentive for them to come forward and seek treatment without undue fear of persecution. Any individual who has the welfare of others in mind and is concerned about these tendencies should be able to seek treatment rather than left to deal with the problem on his own and possibly become an eventual offender. I am not saying that the stigma and leagal consequences for sex crimes should be removed, but that there also needs to be a sympathetic and effective approach to treatment aimed at preventing sex crimes rather than simply leaving them to the criminal system after it is already too late.
Kinsey’s work remains unfinished.
wow, I know it’s practically too late to put this comment in, I can only say I was busy, and couldn’t find the password for days until I finally searched the spam folder.
Anyhow, I’d like to share a few facts.
- I’ve known the accused person in question for over 5 years
- I would trust him with ALL of my children, behind closed doors, NO QUESTION
- I’ve been briefed on the “incident”, which appears to be a fabrication, perhaps started by the children and then reinforced by the parents, railroaded by the police, and stampeded into the press (one of the parents used to be a reporter). Unfortunately, I can’t go into further details until the case finishes either in, or out of, court.
-the long and the short of it is this, IMHO. The dude’s main mistakes were:
1. teaching the children of poor families who saw an opportunity in a hard economy.
2. not being more pro-active, believing his innocence was enough to quell the false rumors. (he has the backing of his colleagues, BTW, but they, too are foreigners)
3. when he finally hired his own legal counsel (he allowed the school to handle this for months and they botched it completely, apparently because they had had a REAL molester case before this), he hired a Korean lawyer, not that there’s anything wrong with this, but the lawyer in question decided to defend him while not really believing his story (and of course not telling him this). make no mistake – THIS IS WORSE THAN NO LAWYER AT ALL !
So yes, as many of you suspected, this IS a witchhunt of an innocent person, who will undoubtedly hate Korea for some time, while still loving his Korean wife dearly….but for now, his life is utterly wrecked.
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