First, we have this doozy from someone who claims to be a lawyer in Hong Kong, a former commenter whom I banned for gyopo-baiting. After I ignored as email demanding an explanation why he couldn’t comment, he writes:
I figured you wouldn’t have the chutzpah to respond to my email.
Speaking of chutzpah, I think it is completely cowardly for you to attack a bunch of college kids teaching English in Korea. What are you, a translator for some local Korean rag? I bet you make 50k tops a year.
You push those kids too hard, who knows, you might find someone wants to file suit against you in Cali, while flying back after speaking with some other lawyers that they work with. Subsequent you have to defend and appear to answer a complaint in California Superior Court or get a default judgment against you. You can contest jurisdiction. Maybe you should talk to Brendan Carr about this.
In any event, I would be more careful if I were you on denigrating young people who are already in an emotionally vulnerable situation in Korea. Not impressive, bully.
In fact, one of the first jobs I worked when I was 15 years old was as a dishwasher. Why might you ask? Because my father who is also a lawyer never wanted me to look down on and denigrate others in a worse situation than myself.
Email me back if you would like additional details.
For the record, I’m no longer a “translator for some local Korean rag,” although as part of my duties, I do, in fact, do some translations for a local Korean rag… the Hankyoreh Shinmun, to be precise.
And I wish a made 50k a year.
The best email, though, was from one particularly odious asshat who referred to another commenter by an ethnic slur (and then wrote “suxk it you fuck for letting racist gooks post the shit they do” after his ban) who, taking offense to NetizenKim’s Jewish jokes, writes:
If you don’t delete those Jewish jokes, if it’s the last thing I do in my life, I’ll fucking hunt you down, you fuck. I know where you live.
What he’d do once he found me, he did not say. But at least he was nice enough to give me a time limit:
You have 12 hours. It’s 8 PM Korean time.
Thanks!
{ 58 comments… read them below or add one }
I thought I was the bête noire of the English teacher set, since I don’t want their cases. How surprising to see a big-time Hong Kong lawyer so invested in this issue.
Can’t speak to your horrible Jew-stereotyping, Robert, but your friend in Hong Kong (must not be a Jew himself, because they make the best lawyers) is quite ignorant about the enforceability of American default judgments in Korea, to say nothing of the economics of mounting a suit against you in California.
In fact, if I were you, I’d love to bait some crybaby English teacher into suing in California — it’s horribly expensive, the lawyers there work for cash out of your antagonist’s pocket, and then when it comes time to bring that default judgment to Korea your antagonist discovers it’s a worthless piece of paper here. And even if it were enforceable, it costs more money to get it enforced here in Korea. Seems like a waste against an empty-pocketed defendant. A Jewish lawyer would know that. Maybe that other guy ought to get back to washing dishes.
What a bathetic clown.
Robert, your story would only be better if the guy threatened you with a trained killer monkey. If he really knows where you live, make sure he understands it is strictly BYOB.
South Korea: Providing Employment for Western Rejects Since 1985
If either of those apparently unstable people sent those emails from work, their employer should be contacted.
Robert,
After enduring 7 years of this kind of douchebaggery, please let me assure you of this: Just ignore these morons and move on. Nothing they say or threaten to do has the least bit of basis in reality.
Hah hah hah. I like: “…you might find someone wants to file suit against you in Cali…” For what, getting his wittle feewings huwt? Ooooooooh, Big Bad Marmot, the buwwy. Thanks for the chuckle; a great way to wind down a fabulous day.
Is it just me, or is e-mail the worst way to send a threat? I’m not saying I’m all old fashioned and won’t accept anything less than a fish wrapped in newspaper, but e-mail seems unable to really communicate malice. And sending an e-mail with a time limit? Threats with time limits are why the telephone was invented.
Maybe these people are setting up their defenses.
“Look, judge, if I really meant to threaten him, I wouldn’t have sent an e-mail. I would have printed out a real letter and posted it.”
I know. So many young people in an emotionally vulnerable situation, so many potential lawsuits…
So the guy doesn’t like Jewish humor? He’s a self-loathing antiSemite.
I dunno — I seem to have trouble communicating anything but malice whenever I comment here on English teacher matters. Everytime I write something innocuous like Stop bothering me with your bullshit trifles, you fucking losers I get the worst responses.
1/ Netizen Kim, bluejives(I admit Sonagi and dogbertt were right),
your father is Jewish and your mother is Korean, correct, right?
2/ the chonsun ilbo is probably the largest rag in South Korea, and it does its fair share of public opinion manipulation much like the New York Times. The stark difference is that it portrays the opposite political view.
the cutest thing about the chosun is the staff op/ed writer,
Kim Daejung.
I wonder if he had his name changed like Perez Hilton.
Robert, to foster peace between gooks and yangnoms,
I suggest you revert to the practice of posting East Asian tits on a weekly basis.
Yea,
as a a self proclaimed Christian, I admit it is wrong for me to say so.
But, for the unbelieving heathen,
more liquor,
more tits
Will effectively bring about harmony.
i’m gonna guestimate that Japan will be the source of 99% of the peace plan. It is the leader in East Asia and the World.
Now that’s funny.
Heh, internet tough guys.
50k a year in Korea is pretty damn good, a person could save about 35k of that a year. After ten years a guy like Robert could get a job teaching in some place like Binghamton University, buy a beautiful house for 100k, and live like a king.
Surely Robert doesn’t paint ALL English teachers with the same brush? Does he? The ones who mail themselves pot and/or diddle children are fair game. Lest we forget that teaching is a profession, and even some of those “young kids” teaching at hakwons do a professional job and care about what they do.
If I had a choice to spend an afternoon with either a lawyer or an English teacher, I’d take the teacher anyday. Lawyers tend to have big egos and fel the need to dominate conversations.
Robert, regarding one particular line in that email from the fellow who intended to hunt you down:
“You have 12 hours. It’s 8 PM Korean time.”
That sounds like an implicit death threat, and I’d always take those seriously . . . though it’s likely an idle one, like that time I received a scarcely hidden threat to be knifed in my bed, but that didn’t happen. Are you still alive?
The only threat that I’ve received because of my blogging was from an antisemite who convinced himself that I was Jewish:
“Your last post betrays your true identity to my satisfaction, Mr. Hodges. I shall have a talk with my 지인들 in the university board and inform them of our short exchanges here. Good luck.”
So far as I know, that came to nothing, but I was headed to another university at the time anyway.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
I think, in the case of the one guy who gave you “12 hours” at least, contacting their employer might not be the best idea. When we were first going out, my wife was getting hassled by one of the guys who worked in her building. I contacted his employer and he told me he would talk to him. Later the guy encountered us in a hallway, quickly apologized and walked away. He never hassled her again, but my wife’s father made a good point when she told him the story later – “You should be glad he didn’t lose his job.” It gave me pause.
The 12 hours guy is clearly nuts and his threat is pretty specific. The best response would probably be no response at all. Sounds like he will move on to another obsession in due time.
“If I had a choice to spend an afternoon with either a lawyer or an English teacher, I’d take the teacher anyday.”
What if the lawyer had huge tits?
I understand it’s a tough job market, but I have no sympathy for someone who loses his job for using a work email address to send a threat using vulgar language.
Robert, I offer you a nice big plate of 돼지족발 (my favorite) in hoping that your irritation subsides.
@23
If the guy had lost his job over the threat, he may just be so enraged that he carries out what he threatened, furthermore he does not have the prospect of loosing his job to keep him in line.
@25
This is why in America, we are allowed to protect ourselves. At least in places where the 2nd amendment hasn’t been corroded by liberals on the basis of feelings and emotion rather than logic.
Uh, Nix, I’d prefer to be threatened in a society where guns AREN’T allowed than in one where it is. And plus, you can always protect yourself in Korea with one of them super powerful bb guns that they sell everywhere.
Or a bat would do. heh
It isn’t about the job market – I have no sympathy for anyone who threatens anyone. I was thinking more along the lines of captbbq’s post – if someone has developed a strange and dangerous obsession with you and you happen to get them fired, they might be driven to carry out their threat. You have to be pragmatic.
It is a difficult dilemma however, at what point do you take some kind of action to protect yourself?
I thought the most interesting thing about that email was he starts off by saying “if it’s the last thing I do in my life…” and ends with “you have 12 hours”. Somewhere in the course of writing the email it switched from becoming a lifelong goal to something he had to handle by the end of the day. Weird.
I have reserved the right to this one:
It’s “losing,” dammit!
>Uh, Nix, I’d prefer to be threatened in a society where guns AREN’T allowed than in one where it is.
Because making something illegal instantly means criminal cannot obtain it. Crack is illegal, but I could get it within two days if needed. Hell, I could probably do the same for a shitty gun. I don’t have any delusions of the nature of humanity, and I prefer to be able to protect myself and my family (which I have actually done) from criminal who don’t give two shits about whatever feel good laws there are. Fuck yeah founding fathers.
The mere presence of firearms does not magically turn everyone into psycho killer maniacs. People will be people regardless.
>And plus, you can always protect yourself in Korea with one of them super powerful bb guns that they sell everywhere.
What? WHAT?! Using a BB gun is a really dumb thing to do, it’s only gonna piss of an attacker more. Seriously, please don’t try this.
In my post there are two instances were “criminal” should be plural.
See if you can find both for a star sticker!
No it isn’t.
It is a job that can be performed with professionalism, though, just as any job can.
I always told folks I’d never be defined by my job. How can I raise a banner for the English teachers? Shit, we’re the kind of pirates who actually obey the captain when he says ‘walk the plank’.
Is there some kind of shortcut to lawyerdom? I don’t got the means for a bribe, but my lips are pretty smooth.
I knew it was a good blog but didn’t realize how wild some of the, um, contributors? are. This place keeps their pineal gland pinging I guess, the sign of a job well done. Keep up the good work!
Jewish hitlists!
@26
…A carefully planned suprise attack is hard to defend against, the knife to the back the strychnine in the guacamole, heck they could even chub your sunglasses.
Otherwise I agree, I am an ardent of supporter of all rights enumerated in the bill of rights, especially the second. Its too bad the conservatives were busy trashing most of the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments during the past administration mostly out of fear for t’errrists or the hordes of
hardworking Catholicsbrown people streaming across the Mexican border, its like every election I have to choose between which rights I want to “loose”, oh well…@30 Ha Ha! See what I did there?! Again! I’m voting for a third party oppressor!
@27
- Shotguns are obtainable in Korea, I see people with them all the time at the gun range I am a member of. Also people are allowed to take them off on their own while hunting.
- Instead of the BB guns, you could always try pepper spray, you can buy that stuff on GMarket…
- Considering how lacksidaisical the Korean police are when it comes to reacting to crimes, especially assault, this is one place I think I really would need a gun. Then again that attitude is preferred over the constant beating of unconscious people, tazing scared 110lb mentally challenged people to death, and shooting people in custody executioner style in a public train station and then trying to confiscate all the cameras from the bystanders as they speed/run away. And that’s all 2009, Woo Hoo! USA! USA! USA!
If you don’t like the blog don’t visit, period!
rule #1 of teh intarnetz: don’t feed the trolls.
I get the feeling Nix is one of those Americans who touts the Second Amendment, but knows nothing about which rights it actually confers.
Availability of guns is correlated with number of felony assaults. True, is it not? And it’s much much easier, I would assume, to decrease availability of guns rather than motivations for assault.
That’s the approved meme, of course, but there is evidence to suggest otherwise. If your mind is open to it, of course…
@42
Apparently not JW. And I answer in all seriousness. I will agree that you might be able to curb the severity of the felony assaults by curbing firearm availability, this is highly dependent upon on certain geographical and socio-economic characteristics that the United States simply is not blessed with.
Great Britain, Japan, Australia and South Korea are islands (the DMZ may as well be an ocean for the purposes of border protection), this lends a huge advantage in controlling what comes in and out. Furthermore there are no havens for contraband nearby any of them from which firearms (or drugs) are easily smuggled in on small craft. The Unites States on the other hand… well need I say how hopeless it is to control the Mexican border or the influx of contraband on small ships coming through the Caribbean from South America? Not to mention the current high density of private gun ownership making any sort of confiscation program hopeless. Curbing access then can only be done for those willing to follow the law.
Rather socio-economic factor are key in determining felony assaults. Many gun rights proponents like to use Switzerland as the example, but my favorite is Vermont. It is a radically pro-gun state (with conceal carry laws), that has dramatically low crime, lower than most provinces of Canada even. Ask yourself, what Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire (and Canada for that matter) don’t have that other states with high crime do, and you have your answer to what correlates with felony assaults. Better I not say it.
Many gun rights proponents like to show how the availability of guns actually reduces crime, but the presence of other factors, (the socio-economic and geographical that I make) often lend these arguments to a long back and forth debate. Instead I like to point out one type of crime you don;t see much of in the US but you see a lof of in Korea and even Great Britain, and that is home invasions while the owner is present. In the US, this just doesn’t happen all that often, because those who try it end up shot (criminals in studies will often admit to this). Unlike assaults in public, where people don’t like wield a heavy weapon with them all the time, this isn’t the case for in home. Therefor criminals go to great lengths to ensure no one in home before entering a house.
In South Korea or Great Briton, criminals will invade a house much more often, intending to overpower and subdue the tenant or owner and in doing so what would have otherwise been robbery turns into assault (sometimes, in fact all too often, sexual).
Certainly anyone who monitors this blog would see the examples of this posted now an again, first when it happened to a woman who would latter become famous for her role on 미녀들의 수다, and soon after when it happened to a US army nurse in Daegu. Further more anyone staying in Korea for long enough will notice this happens a lot. Off the top of my head I can think of four people who have had this happen to them, one of which, A co-worker of mine even had to rush home because a criminal was trying to bash in the door to his mother-in-laws apartment to gain entry, oblivious to her screams.
@41
It would seem to be a pretty clear statement.
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Sure, it doesn’t say “Because badguys may try to break into you house, you may have guns I guess”. But as a consequence of “the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” I am able to protect myself and others not only from governments foreign and domestic, but simple criminals as well, all of whom will constantly attempt to threaten my liberty.
So, instead of being snide with comments like “Hurr hurr I bet he’s one of THOSE people *snicker snicker*”, by all means, tell me what it REALLY means.
@37
It’s so true. Republicans or democrats, whoever wins, we lose.
@45
Though I should also add this does not mean I have “given up” on the government, one should always try to stay as active as possible, otherwise you forfeit the outcome.
I should also note I’m not sitting in my basement waiting for the “gubbment” to get me. Frankly I have more to fear from the soft tyranny that Alexis de Tocqueville all too accurately predicted, than “FEMA concentration camps” (sorry, this is a bit of an injoke) and tanks rolling down the streets.
The best email, though, was from one particularly odious asshat who referred to another commenter by an ethnic slur (and then wrote “suxk it you fuck for letting racist gooks post the shit they do” after his ban) who, taking offense to NetizenKim’s Jewish jokes, writes:
If you don’t delete those Jewish jokes, if it’s the last thing I do in my life, I’ll fucking hunt you down, you fuck. I know where you live.
Holy knishkabobs, wonders never cease.
For the record, those “racist” Jewish jokes were read by yours truly in a book entitled Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews by Joseph Telushkin.
Whoever this person is needs to take a major chill pill.
@43
[sniff] thats bringing a tear to my eye…
Imagine that…
#12 wjk:
your father is Jewish and your mother is Korean, correct, right?
I don’t know what gives you that idea. My father is Korean and my mother is Korean.
what Korean Korean eats Matzos?
then are you a PK?
what Korean Korean eats Matzos?
Once I came home to visit my parents. There were hundreds of boxes of matzos in the dining room. My mother told me that the local supermarket were giving them away for free. She gave me some to take home. At the time I was renovating my apartment including the kitchen. My meals consisted of matzo and sardines, inspired by a particular scene in “The Burbs” with Tom Hanks.
Some churches use matzos in Holy Communion.
then are you a PK?
Nope, not a PK, thank goodness.
NK, the joke I contributed was also one that had been told to me by a Jewish friend who, true to one of the greatest attributes of the Jewish people, was profoundly skilled at deflecting angst into humor. When Mel Brooks produced his best stuff, he too, capitalized on goy stereotypes as well as inside Jewish humor. Black friends of mine have also related some black jokes that would make many non-black folks blush. If it’s done in good humor, with sympathy and without malice it is in good taste. By contrast, some of the stereotype ethnic jokes I heard as a kid are immediately seen as mean spirited and just dumb. When I asked a Jewish friend about these, he just shrugged and said without any concern “well, what kind of humor would you expect from a goy, anyway?”
#52 Mizar:
…profoundly skilled at deflecting angst into humor.
Sometimes that can be carried too far. Humor is not a virtue in and of itself. Humor must be counterbalanced by gravitas otherwise you have flippant absurdism. I’ve had a Jewish friend of many years who treats everything in life as a big, on-going joke and imagines himself to be the perpetual outsider. He and I are not friends any longer.
@#26, there should be some kind of law similar to Godwin’s Law where citing the name of liberals to blame all that is wrong with the world means instant fail.
@26
Honestly my statement, while it is a generalization, is far more specific than what you are trying making it out to be. Do you expect us to believe the primary infringers on the 2nd in this country aren’t self proclaimed liberals?
Liberals are largely to blame for actively trying to destroy the amendment.
Conservatives are guilty of letting it happen.
Jews did 911.
There. Happy now? Let me know if you ever need me to be politically correct again, I’ll be happy to oblige.
Lawyers can be a royal pain in the ass if they want to. Rob, just count yourself lucky that you didn’t lose his pants.
BTW, how does anyone live in Seoul on less than $50k per year?
DLB
“BTW, how does anyone live in Seoul on less than $50k per year?”
AA meetings at the USO.
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