Yep, it’s English teachers getting busted again for drugs.
About 10 foreigners — mostly Americans and Canadian (shocking!) — were busted for smuggling or smoking product on Wednesday, including an American who has been teaching in Korea for 10 years and has appeared in the music video of a famous Korean girl group as well as TV.
The teachers taught at a well-known English kindergarten and elementary, middle and high schools.
Prosecutors believe that, as habitual tokers, they might have taught high.
MBC said most of those busted had been smoking regularly since middle or high school, but had no problem working as English teachers in Korea. This, they say, is because while foreign teachers need to get health exams at designated hospitals to get a visa, the test for pot is not included. One prosecutor told MBC that someone testified that because the test for pot was left out, they mistakenly thought smoking pot was OK in Korea.
This year, about 660 foreigners have been busted on drug offenses.
Prosecutors say that among foreign English teachers, there’s a rumor that Korea goes easy on foreign drug crimes, and that strong punishment is necessary.
Oh, as a bonus, the Kyeongin Ilbo reports that the afore mentioned American was just a middle school grad who had been residing in Korea illegally since 1999 AND that he had several articles of, well, lewd material involving children. I didn’t see that last part in other reports, so I’m not sure what kind of credibility I’d give it.
More from Yonhap here. They apparently smuggled their coke and pot through Incheon Airport, and purchased their hash from a 41-year-old Iranian drug dealer. Nice to see that as bad as relations may be between our two nations, we can still do business at a personal level.
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Love how a “Say No to Drugs” ad pops up on this post.
Whilst they’re idiots for smoking pot here, the tone of these articles never fails to piss me off.
The conjecture that ‘Prosecutors believe that, as habitual tokers, they might have taught high.’ Also this bit is just fucking nonsense ‘Prosecutors say that among foreign English teachers, there’s a rumor that Korea goes easy on foreign drug crimes, and that strong punishment is necessary.’
The implication is that basically all English teachers are habitual drug users. They don’t say it quite like that, but if you throw enough excrement at the wall some is eventually going to stick. Any connection with the AES folks? Apparently the head of the ATEK just received some death threats to his email, it doesn’t suprise me in the slightest with these wackjob nutizens and the xenophobic rabble rousers they flock to.
I
Whether you agree or disagree with whether or not drugs should be legal/illegal, etc. etc. Korea’s got to do more than a slap on the wrist! Make an example and punish them like no other, start a precedent!
What Korea desperately needs is an outspoken Lou Dobbs-like figure to emerge.
What Korea desperately needs is to start focusing on its actual real problems and not parading arse-witted English teachers stoopid enough to get caught committing an essentially victimless crime in front of news media, whilst simultaneously indulging in brainless speculation about what the grotesque deviants might have done whilst in an ‘altered state’.
Personally, The part I have difficulties believing in is this:
“[...]One prosecutor told MBC that someone testified that because the test for pot was left out, they mistakenly thought smoking pot was OK in Korea.[...]”
I think this was a desperate attempt of defense and nothing else.
” including an American who has been teaching in Korea for 10 years and has appeared in the music video of a famous Korean girl group as well as TV.”
Anybody know what “girl group”?
10 years in Korea? I wonder what his visa status was? Probably not an E2.
Good question. Since he was hear illegally (or so it was reported), I doubt it was an E2.
“they mistakenly thought smoking pot was OK in Korea.”
-Yeah, that’s why hash is 50,000 won per gram and you have to buy it from Iranians in Itaewon. Because it’s OK.
“there’s a rumor that Korea goes easy on foreign drug crimes”
-Uh-huh, foreigners in Korea think Korea goes easy on foreign drug crime. That’s why everyone who smokes hash in Korea locks themselves in their bathroom and blows the smoke into the exhaust fan while burning incense. Because Korea goes easy on foreign drug crime.
“may have taught while high”
-If you can watch TV while you drive, what is wrong with teaching while high? Which activity is more likely to cause harm to others?
As for the coke, stupid stupid.
Way ta go to beef up your stereotypes. And you wonder where the Koreans get their stereotypes of “low quality English teachers’. What dumb asses.
If I had to guess it would be S.E.S. (what happened to them?) and it would be this video. If you’ve been around a while and are sociable there are few faces you may recognize.
In the video the pop stars had it w/ the foreigner guys, but in real life the foreigner guys had the pop stars.
Ok, all the expats who promised to fisk NSETs assholes as much as they do Korean assholes, this is your chance to put your money where your mouth is. I’ll be waiting.
All right, I’ll just come out and say what NetizenKim and thekorean wants to hear. I think we need to go all Singapore on people’s ass if these misbehaving foreigners are to be stopped and groups like AES are to lose their significance. Take it for the team, bitches.
It’s true that the teachers probably taught while high, ie, smoked up before class. But they were probalby not high in the sense of dysfunction and altered consciousness, etc..
Lots of potheads I know smoke during the day, but they smoke to stabilize mood, not to alter consciousness. It’s like coffee.
That said, I feel sorry for potheads, and I have no pity for the Americans and Canadians in Korea who break the rules and get kicked out of Korea or else as a result. Learn the rules, follow them, and gain a sense of responsibility. It’s not that hard.
Losers in the Anglosphere = Losers in Asia. Nothing much changes.
Of course, they’re fucking idiots (I can’t speak for them being assholes, but they are certainly in the moron category). You expect us to say they’re a bunch of geniuses mailing themselves pot cookies, after all the “successes” of previous drug mailings we’ve seen in the papers?
Robert, are you sure it was, “the afore mentioned American”?
1. Stays in Korea illegally for 10 years.
2. Flouts himself in a music video. (Usually people who are teaching here illegally try to remain as anonymous as possible.)
3. Has only a middle school diploma but decides to market itself as an educator Korea. (Not that I believe you need to have qualifications to teach a job that needs no qualifications).
4. Teaches while high.
If it is “the afore mentioned American”, well Christ what can I say? — this guy must have balls the size of church bells or the brain the size of a walnut.
It was a group of 10 after all.
Anyways, these stories always make my day.
Bless you Robert
PS- seouldout – my guess was not S.E.S. , I was thinking more about a solo entertainer (I don’t think it was a girls band) whose name begins with B.
You want me to fisk your a__hole?
“You want me to fisk your a__hole?”
What does that mean?????
I expect a general silence, punctuated occasionally by “Korea is such a shitty place for not allowing pot” nonsense. So far, the first part seems to be right — 300+ comments to bitch when Koreans do something to hurt NSETs, and 20 comments when an NSET hurts NSETs. Yeah, that fits the MO.
To put a spin on this has anyone in the Korean Media ever wondered why soo many English teachers turn to pot while living in Korea?
“Ok, all the expats who promised to fisk NSETs assholes as much as they do Korean assholes, this is your chance to put your money where your mouth is. I’ll be waiting.”
As I recall, you, and only you, are the one who thinks this is the key to getting ajosshis to stop feeling “like they’ve been betrayed by their own mother” when they see a Korean woman with a foreign man.
Go for it! Use your no doubt excellent Korean language skills to inform the public as to the unsympathetic reaction to this story on this site and elsewhere. Begin with “fucking idiots” from Babaganoosh @16.
What happened to S.E.S.? They hit
3025 and in an amazing coincidence simultaneously lost their singing ability and had to “retire” from K-Pop.You are either recalling incorrectly, or lying. Either way, you’re not worth my time. Go jerk off somewhere else.
“I expect 300+ comments to bitch when Koreans do something to hurt NSETs, and 20 comments when an NSET hurts NSETs. Yeah, that fits the MO.” – theAmazingdidimentionimalawyerKorean
But half of those 300+ comments are from you and other apologists insisting it is all the fault of foreigners for
not understanding Korean culturedating our womennot behaving just like Koreansnot being Korean, and the other half are explaining why you are full of shit.Meanwhile, twenty comments is sufficient to crticize, condemn, and laugh at the latest foreigners to get busted for drugs, as we know by now that Korea goes out of its way to strictly enforce laws against foreigners, while seldom enforcing its laws against ajosshis (e.g., prostitution, public drunkenness, reckless driving, driving motorcycles on sidewalks, etc.).
Smoking pot is illegal in most native English speaking places, but when people are caught/arrested for it “back home” it doesn’t really make the paper, and when you hear about someone getting caught, I’m pretty sure most of you native English speakers don’t instantly decide they are stupid assholes. So why do you instantly decide they’re stupid assholes in Korea? Because THEY make YOU look bad? That’s pathetic.
If you like to smoke pot, and want to take that chance knowing that it is illegal in Korea (just like you take that chance back home knowing it is illegal) then do it.
I like more Koreans to stop lumping all foreigners together, and yet many of you are just as guilty of doing it. Grow up.
If they do it back home, no one cares, and even if caught they get a slap on the wrist and the papers most likely won’t report it. Where is the drawback to doing it?
But drugs laws are taken seriously in Korea and if you’re caught you WILL make the paper. Some one who knows this will happen and yet chooses to toke up anyway is, in my book, an idiot. We won’t even get into the prices they shell out for it, which are only for morons to pay.
Slap on the wrist? I don’t think it’s a slap on the wrist in a lot places in Canada and the United States. Of course there are states with medical marijuana use laws, and rare instance, like Vancouver, where police have publicly states that marijuana convictions are not a priority…but that does not negate the fact that there were over 800,000 marijuana related arrests in the United States in 2007. Consequences? In some states, people can’t vote if they have that kind of arrest on their record.
You say “If they do it back home, no one cares……” OK, then when do foreigners suddenly care in Korea? My guess is because people who don’t smoke pot feel that people who are smoking pot are sullying their image, and I think that’s pathetic.
There is a wierd kind of jurisprudence emerging here. Is this a valid defense in court: “even though I broke a law, I’m innocent because other laws are not being strictly enforced”?
chia:
“So why do you instantly decide they’re stupid assholes in Korea?”
Korea is the place where right-wing American losers come and find a bunch of people as uptight as they are. They’re made for each other.
netizen kim:
Is this a valid defense in court: “even though I broke a law, I’m innocent because other laws are not being strictly enforced”?
-When Korea’s total lack of traffic law enforcement meant that I actually got run over by a car on my way to work, I started to hate the lazy Korean cops and all of their rules.
When Korea’s total lack of traffic law enforcement meant that I actually got run over by a car on my way to work, I started to hate the lazy Korean cops and all of their rules.
So the fact that you got run over by a car means that you have a license to disrespect the law?
I don’t want my comment to sound like I, personally, disrespect the law, but the fact remains, those who are breaking the law by smoking pot in Korea, are most likely breaking the law by smoking pot “back home”.
I accept the fact that it is illegal, and people who are caught should be penalized. What I don’t agree with is that “back home” it’s just bad luck that they got caught, but over here they’re “stupid assholes” who are “making the rest of us look bad”. That I cannot understand nor accept.
If the “I was drunk” defense works for sexual abuse, couldn’t these druggies claim to have drank some 한라산 (my personal favorite) prior to taking the first toke, and then claim an “I was high” defense for all subsequent tokes…. and get off with a suspended sentence?
I’m starting to learn the Korean legal system… Maybe I can get a job with Box Top Boy!
So the fact that you got run over by a car means that you have a license to disrespect the law?
- If there’s one thing I learned in Korea, it’s that law is relative. It doesn’t apply to everyone. When Koreans demonstrate their total disregard for Korean laws every day by driving with total disregard for human life, don’t be surprised that other people start to take the Korean authorities less than seriously.
Darth, you are a man of your word — I tip my hat to you. But I’m still waiting on the rest of the crew.
I don’t care what happens back home, here you’re stupid for doing it. If smoking up is such an important part of your life that you can’t give it up, go somewhere else. Whether or not other Korean laws are enforced or other people get the same treatment is irrelevant. Of course the law is unequal here (as it is back home), but that means foreigners should be more careful, not less.
Well, yeah? A few NSETs doing something and stupid getting themselves caught shouldn’t get the other foreigners riled up because it shouldn’t have any bearing on us. The whole situation should provide us with a little schadenfreude and be quickly forgotten.
Yes, you’re right that they make the rest of us look bad, but only if you accept that we should be taken as stereotypes and not as individuals. Yes, I know that grandstanding and loudly condemning these admittedly stupid people who committed a nonviolent crime may buy a tiny reduction in the negative stereotype of foreigners, but it probably won’t. We certainly don’t have any ability to prevent more stupid people from being hired, smoking up, and getting caught.
God, I’m so happy I’m in the U.S. where Korean and Caucasian brethren can join joints and toke up peaceful smoke rings.
(Emphasis added.)
Allow me to quote Mr. Carr, who is wiser than I: “If you live in the world of How Things Should Be rather than the world of How Things Are, you’re in for a rude awakening. Make your behavior choices based on How Things Are.”
does your mum/and or sister know about this?
seokso:
go somewhere else
Who are you to tell me where to go?
t_song: God, I’m so happy I’m in the U.S. where Korean and Caucasian brethren can join joints and toke up peaceful smoke rings.
After that your white buddy will go and screw your sister while you jerk off to porn. Merry Kumbaya.
@yuna
no and yes. mom is selectively perplexed about my “special” cigarettes, while sister is known to join along.
however, t_song’s FOBish sister refuses to toke it up with my Caucasian brethren–in fear of catching AIDS or being molested. and, my sister is somewhat elitist, so she scoffs at White Boys who she deems unqualified and undereducated in smoking marijuana.
If you noticed the sentence immediately after the one you quoted, I did make a behavior choice based on “How Things Are.” My point was that what we say has little or no impact on the stereotype, so why should we bother grandstanding about it?
Look, it’s your choice. Some places it’s easy and cheap, while others it’s difficult and pricey. If you want to make your life harder, that’s up to you. But if you spend too much money to do something that will get you in disproportionate trouble, then I will say you are stupid. And if getting high is important to you, then there are far better places to live than Korea.
I’ve given up on the whole “making us look bad” thing, because the people who don’t like foreigners will dislike us regardless of whether or not you get caught or what I say about it.
Sounds like you speak from experience.
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