I think the Soju Seonsaengnim has hit the nail on the head here:
What is clear to me, however, is the utter stupidity of the foreigners involved. The audio interview conducted by the Korean Media Watch does absolutely nothing to support their innocence. The female’s testimony reveals her complete and utter disregard for Korean culture. She claims that Koreans should be more understanding of American culture because Texas Hold ‘Em is a popular game in the States. Nevermind the fact that American laws are irrelevant in Korea. The male who hosted the poker game mentioned pictures of previous poker games hanging on his wall. That’s not going to do much to convince the Korean police that he isn’t hosting his own private casino. The final nail in the coffin comes from the second man interviewed, who mentions that he plays poker professionally, in clear violation of his E-2 visa.
Interestingly, Soju Seonsaengnim apparently resides in Yecheon, Gyeongsangbuk-do. As you know, me and guest blogger Andy Jackson used to live in next door Mungyeong. Anyway, bangapseumnida.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t disagree with the part you quoted, BUT….
Also from that same post- “Judging by my past interactions with teachers from Seoul, I highly doubt their innocence. In my experience, it seems that teachers fight for jobs in Seoul so that they can shield themselves from Korean culture with a human barrier made up of other foreign teachers.”
That is asinine. I admit, I am a bit weirded out by people who live in Itaewon make that the center of their world. But to judge all people who live in Seoul that way is ridiculous. I have lived in a both a smaller city far from Seoul, and Seoul, and I found that most people in the smaller city to be much more insulated. I know lots of Korean people in Seoul, whereas I found it to be very difficult to meet people, and to have a real friendship with people in the smaller city.
And 90% of the foreigners in the smaller town went to the same foreigner bar every weekend, and by foreigner bar I mean 100% foreign clientele. People I know in Seoul study Korean. Some are quite good. They have Korean boyfriends, girlfriends, wives and husbands (really!). They have Korean friends. They know more Korean food than Galbi and Kimbap. And they tend to stay longer, whereas people in the smaller towns tend more to be the one-year post-university types.
I guess his experience is pretty limited if that is what he thinks about those of us who like to live in an amazing city, the city that most young Koreans would prefer to live in. It is the center of the country’s culture, mass media, and where most of the country’s news happens.
I like the country too, but come on. Seoul is the place to be.
Hits the nail on the head with ill-informed comments. The second guy (the “professional” player) is not a teacher here — he’s on a tourist visa and exercises his legal right to play poker at the casino (which was mainly built for tourists, after all). The first guy, the one who lives at the house, opened his home to allow people to play poker and MAKES NO MONEY FROM THE ENDEAVOR. Hence, he is *not* operating a casino.
Agreed that the interview was a very bad idea and does not garner them much sympathy, however. I don’t think it was a very good idea and might do more harm than good in the end.
That being said, ill-informed commentary about the situation does nothing to help those involved. Everyone has their right to an opinion, of course, but a better effort to base it upon actual facts would serve everyone well.
wawawa… fuckin whiny Canadians.
you fucked up, accept the consequences.
they were gambling, which is illegal!
simple
Why is it several people have made a point of “wah wah, gambling is illegal. simple” when that was never the argument Metro made (and others) when he first posted the news.
That they broke the law was never in dispute (except by the idiots themselves).
That they should be punished for breaking the law is not in dispute.
What was in dispute was which law did they break, and why were the police trying to pin a more serious crime on them they did not commit. Thank Christ, the media didn’t buy into it.
Fine them for breaking the laws on gambling, and let them go home (deal with the two drug positives as a separate issue as it should be); they were not gambling in a legal casino, so be it. But come on, putting them in prison for three years for operating a casino? Are you serious?
“Thank Christ, the media didn’t buy into it.”
Actually, the media did buy into it and posted headlines of “foreigners caught in gambling and drugs ring”, trying to show it as a huge foreigner crime syndicate hell bent on destroying pure Korean culture.
Damage done!
The only part that bugs me is the selective enforcement.
#3
That has to be probably the lamest trolling effort I have ever seen.
“I admit, I am a bit weirded out by people who live in Itaewon make that the center of their world. ”
Sort of like how first generation immigrants to the US or Canada gravitated to Chinatown, Little Italy, or some other ethnic neighborhood? Not exactly a strange concept, especially for those who aren’t ,or don’t feel like, they’re in it for the long haul.
“And 90% of the foreigners in the smaller town went to the same foreigner bar every weekend, and by foreigner bar I mean 100% foreign clientele.”
Doesn’t sound like a place I’d like to hang out in on a regular basis, but options in the smaller town were likely quite limited. As you noted, Seoul seems to be where it’s at, and Koreans will be the first to tell you much the same thing.
“People I know in Seoul study Korean. Some are quite good. They have Korean boyfriends, girlfriends, wives and husbands (really!). They have Korean friends. They know more Korean food than Galbi and Kimbap.”
I think your description probably applies to most of the foreign residents of Korea who post here. No surprise.
I used to make Itaewon a central aspect of a lot of my weekends – eating out, having a few beers, shopping, etc – because it was a brief departure from living a very Korean life most of the time.
As for the gambling, it seems clear to me that these guys are getting a lot of attention because they’re foreign. (The Korean media apparently still loves to demonize foreigners, unfortunately. I guess cracker criminals sell papers.) The Korean police seem to be equal opportunity pigs when it comes to nailing Korean gamblers and swingers, but dirty, rotten foreigners up to no good makes for a much more exciting story.
They aren’t doing themselves any favors with their comments – assuming the comments are accurate and not taken completely out of context, which is a distinct possibility – but that seems to be par for the course when people get into trouble.
The link to that blog says:
Error 404 – Not Found
Apologies, but we were unable to find what you were looking for. Perhaps searching will help.
In the same blog, I found this story. This woman sounds like a nightmare.
——–
What you’re about to read is the true story of a foreigner who taught in Yecheon for one month before going home. She arrived on March 1 and left sometime in early April. I typed up this list for a post in the “Teaching in South Korea” thread on the Something Awful Forums. When I told Zak, the Canadian who taught at the same school as the foreign teacher in question, he insisted that I share the list. He wanted to add some stories as well. I can verify with 100% certainty that she did everything on this list because I witnessed most of it. Check it out:
Didn’t even make an attempt to eat her first meal in Yecheon, even though the owner of the restaurant and her co-teacher were both eager for her to try Korean food. She outright refused to eat anything on the table. She also hates rice.
Complained about Korean bedding while constantly making reference to the “high-quality” sheets she had at home. She refused to let it go and compromise, even though her co-teacher was willing to buy her any set of sheets in the store.
During her first teacher dinner, she yelled at the owner of the restaurant to get her more alcohol. The owner of the restaurant was the vice principal’s wife.
Didn’t eat lunch once at her school. She took a taxi to Lotteria and ate chicken tenders. Every day.
Got drunk in a restaurant owned by the friend of my wife’s co-teacher, then proceeded to start screaming about the piercings in her nether regions and how much she loves a particular sex act. The kicker was when she stood up and started grinding up against a large wooden pillar while simultaneously slapping it with the palm of her hand and faking an orgasm. The owner of the restaurant came and yelled at us.
Was late to work every single day she was in Korea, even though her co-teacher offered to give her a ride to school. She usually kept him waiting for 15-20 minutes.
Yelled at her students so much that they refused to sign up for English camp this summer and are no longer that interested in learning English.
Whether the last one is bad is debatable. Her sister was hospitalized because of a car accident that involved several family members. Her reaction of course was to immediately buy a ticket to her home state and phone her co-teacher at 6AM asking if he would take her to Seoul. He didn’t answer his phone, so she took a bus to the airport, hopped on her flight, and left Korea.
To this day, she continues to write us page-long ramblings on Facebook about how the termination of her contract wasn’t fair, even though the EPIK contract clearly states you can only get time off for the death of a parent or spouse. Even then, you get seven days – not as long as you feel like it.
The coda to the story of this foreigner came when she called her old co-teacher asking for her job back. She did this after weeks of criticizing said co-teacher, the POE, and Korea in general. Needless to say, he laughed right in her face.
Classic ET tails!
I listened to the interview and it wasn’t clear to me that the “professional poker player” was in Korea on an E-2 visa. Was this reported anywhere or is it just an assumption made because dumping on foolish English teachers is more fun than dumping on foolish people of indeterminate visa status?
Yes, Robert, that first link isn’t working.
Why would the police need to use threats of violence and brandish weapons to break up a amateur gambling game where they found no weapons, no drugs and no bouncer?
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/07/06/200907060051.asp
아이고! You’d think they busted The French Connection or a Nork terrorist cell instead of some stupid English teachers participating in a victimless crime that had zero net effect on Koreans.
^ how are the police supposed to know that, until they go through the place? They probably thought all the drugged up gamblers will be resisting.
Three to six million wons in the pot is a pretty serious gambling case in Korea. Even ajummas who play go stop in local neighborhood games get treated the same. Korea’s law enforcement needs some serious cracking of heads enforcing laws. So one of the cops pushed one of the suspects, big f**ing deal! The law is the law, just because you’re a foreigner doesn’t put you above the law, nor is it racism. And most Americans and Canadians would say the exact same thing if the law was broken was in their home lands and some foreigners were busted.
Yes “cm”, in the US the cops routinely shoot unarmed people and beat people they arrest while they are handcuffed, etc. But just because a hyper-aggressive, gun loving and warmongering place like the US does it, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to do.
Coercing defendants and manipulating their statements is not cool. And I seriously doubt ajjumma’s have cops threatening to beat them when they bust up their illegal games.
Yeah, I decided to take the article down. RJ, Rob, and Brian do a better job covering the serious issues than I do, so I’ll leave that stuff to them. My comments on the story were pretty generalized and downright wrong in some cases, anyway.
The story about the foreigner who lasted a month in Yecheon is true, unfortunately. She cost her school so much money that the principal no longer wants foreigners at his school. Crazy stuff. Cheers!
This appears to be one of those polarizing strawman issues we see so much of – the kind in which a polarizing issue is perpetrated to keep people blissfully off the trail of questioning how they are really being taken advantage of for political or financial gains.
In the US, one can tune into the news and see endless reporting on Michael Jackson for weeks on end, or watch John McCain droning on about how Obama should have made even stronger statements about internal Iranian affairs, etc. Meanwhile, important issues like the outsoucing of jobs overseas, the excalation of another war of stupidity in Afganistan, etc. do not need to be addressed. The corporations for whom the politicians work, get free reign by creating phony issues like abortion, family values, and whether Barach Obama is a “socialist.”
What are the real reasons foreigners are villified by the Korean media? At the very least, it sells advertising (newspapers, TV). But xenophobia has proven a potent distraction from systemic corruption. Roh Mu Hyun of course used it to get himself elected. It’s been used to blackmail the US into making financial concessions.
But the issue of some foreigners being arrested for gambling is of no importance in itself.
The Herald Article is somewhat amusing in detail. Especially the part of the policeman admitting he entered with a baton with the intent to act provocatively threatening, rather than for protection.
What I wonder about the 3-6 mil figure for the amount gambled “over a period of time”. Is that adding up the buy-ins for the night (about 500K)? The summation of the pots over the night (five ours of play, about 13K risked by each on average, or more specifically about a 2-4 or 5-10 game.) Or is the “period of time” some other calculation based on the supposed frequency of events. This is too ambiguous of a situation for us to really say it was a big game or a small game.
While this is not directly related to this story it is current and on the topic of how foreigners are appreciated in Korea:
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/07/06/200907060052.asp
From the get-go this piece was headed for Stoopidsville: “Korea may become the first country to realize a harmonious multicultural society, an ideal which has never fully been realized in any other country, said a German-turned-Korean.”
There was an interesting anecdote:
“Korean people are generally open to foreigners as guests,” he said. “Once a foreigner tries to become part of their society, they tend to reject it. I was once asked by the ruling Grand National Party to run for office in the proportional representative election, representing the non-ethnic Korean population,” said Lee. “However, the committee later took me off the list.”
He goes on to accuse the US and Australia as only providing “second-degree citizenship” for immigrants and blames the Japanese for Korea’s xenophobia. Wow, he is a real Korean! He says the reason Korea will succeed where US and Australia fail to achieve a happy multicultural is society is “Their (Korean) passion may be seen in voluntary group actions such as the nationwide campaign to clean up the oil in the Taean shore, or the candlelight vigils. This collective power is a unique characteristic of a country called Korea and is a potential driving force for the future.”
That last sentence sounded just like one of those charmingly ridiculous marketing slogans Korean government officers are so good at churning out. I guess we foreigners overlooked how important those candlelight vigils were for making Korea a harmonious multi-ethnic society. Jeez, as if Americans and Australians don’t volunteer for disaster relief or run protests when they feel victimized by their government. And I wonder if this guy has ever heard of a relatively peaceful multicultural country in Asia that is about a light year ahead of Korea called Singapore? I guess if you’re a foreigner and want to become a real ajjessi with a Korean ID card you have to check the left side of your brain at the immigration office.
For every peaceful candlelight vigil there is a rock-throwing, hit-the-police-with-bamboo-poles, we-are-the-victim-of-police-brutality-even-though-we-started-it protest.
Well, that’s a form of passion, too, I guess.
#16 and others —
Listening skills, people.
The point of the interview was not to “establish their innocence.” It was to get their version of the story out there, make it easier for sympathetic media to get at that story, and to have a narrative down fresh after coming out of the police interview.
Also, the point of the interview wasn’t to garner sympathy — I told them to simply tell it as it had happened. And to those who actually listened to the way the police handled the case, if their allegations are true, there were some serious problems with the way they were treated.
And for the foreign community, the entire narrative serves as a warning — instead of being snide and snickering at them, perhaps something can be taken from this, e.g. you don’t have to consent to a search (pee test), you should document the arrest as much as you can, and it would behoove you to detail the story in some kind of narrative as completely as you can, as soon as you can, especially if you feel your rights were violated (the cop ripping up the girl’s testimony, lying to the Canadian embassy about the media not being present, being told by the police that they had to speak to the cameras).
And for those of you commenting about “they’re guilty, so stop whining about it” — they never claimed to be not guilty about violating the law about private gambling, which generally carries a 3 million won fine and is a slap on the wrist. What they were spending the entire interview emphasizing — from the cultural explanations to the conversation about tournament vs. Texas Holdem to one person emphasizing being a professional gambler and spending all his high stakes time in a legal casino (which is perfectly legal for tourists to play in) — is that they were NOT at the time running an illegal gambling operation.
And they said that about $2000 was on the table, amongst 8 people. If you think about it, that’s not very much at all. You’ve never heard of anyone gambling with about $200-300 before? In the pre-interview, one of the crew talked about the high stakes games going on in the casinos, with guys dropping $10-20,000 in a single night, and seeing these guys come back the next day to lose that much more. That’s why the conversation about the chips and their value was relevant, and that is why the police had to have them actually sit down and explain how to play poker — some of the cops were insisting that the chips had INHERENT value, like a $500 chip in a casino or something. So all that stuff was VERY relevant to the accusation of being a gambling RACKETEER or just a private player.
If you actually listened to the interview, without skipping around.
So, sojuseonsaengnim, that should pretty much address every point in your criticism. You may not like them or agree with them, but from the POLICE’S perspective, everything from the rules of the game, how popular the game is in the US, how much the chips are worth, how much was on the table, and even the assertion that they make far, far more money in the casino quite legally speaks to both the logic and motivation of running a private gambling OPERATION, as opposed to playing a friendly game, with each person staked to lose a couple hundred bucks.
I believe all that crap the police did as I heard first hand from friends many moons ago…
Some guys in Daejeon were busted for hash and were accused of running a drug ring with drugs-for-sex with underage girls attached to it as well. The truth was they just liked to get a little baked and play video games.
The police also did the big mock up in the station about a week later and it was presented like a new bust/breaking news etc etc. They were also presented with these things they had to do (despite the law saying they did not).
I guess the best way to avoid this is not to break the law. Although that sometimes does not matter either….
Vince said: “And I seriously doubt ajjumma’s have cops threatening to beat them when they bust up their illegal games.”
You’re right, Vince. It is probably the other way around:) If I were a cop I would think twice about locking horns with an ajjumma. ESPECIALLY when there is fat money on the table.
#21,
You should pick your battles. Surely there are other oppressed waeguks more worthy and deserving of your attention. The fact that you picked these whiny rah-tards to defend tends to undercut your cause.
After all, what you’re arguing for is merely a difference in degree (yes they were gambling, yes they commited a crime, but they weren’t running a gambling OPERATION).
The next time you want to get on a soapbox and preach about the oppressive, racist Korean police and media, you might want to find someone who is actually INNOCENT.
What is clear to me, however, is the utter stupidity of the foreigners involved.
-Unlike the utter stupidity displayed daily on the streets and in the schools of Korea.
The audio interview conducted by the Korean Media Watch does absolutely nothing to support their innocence. The female’s testimony reveals her complete and utter disregard for Korean culture.
-Because Koreans have such high regard for other cultures.
She claims that Koreans should be more understanding of American culture because Texas Hold ‘Em is a popular game in the States.
-Well, they picked up hip-hop, evangelical Christianity and wife-swapping pretty well.
Nevermind the fact that American laws are irrelevant in Korea.
-Er. That’s not what those SOFA protesters (AKA most Koreans) seem to think.
The male who hosted the poker game mentioned pictures of previous poker games hanging on his wall. That’s not going to do much to convince the Korean police that he isn’t hosting his own private casino.
-The condoms and lube in every juicy bar in Itaewon had me convinced that those places where private brothels. Why aren’t those ladies in jail?
The final nail in the coffin comes from the second man interviewed, who mentions that he plays poker professionally, in clear violation of his E-2 visa.
-How about the guy I knew that taught English to cops for cash IN a police station in northern Seoul? Why didn’t he go to jail?
Seoul’s a shithole, dirty and grimey, rude, smelly. overpriced and the entire city has less culture than a single NYC block. But if you like prostitution, it is the place to be.
One caveat. Good fish.
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