The man, myth and certainly the legend, LAT correspondent John M. Glionna, meets with Anti-English Spectrum head honcho Yie Eun-woong and lives to write the tale:
Sometimes, in his off hours, Yie Eun-woong does a bit of investigative work.
He uses the Internet and other means to track personal data and home addresses of foreign English teachers across South Korea.
Then he follows them, often for weeks at a time, staking out their apartments, taking notes on their contacts and habits.
He wants to know whether they’re doing drugs or molesting children.
Yie, a slender 40-year-old who owns a temporary employment agency, says he is only attempting to weed out troublemakers who have no business teaching students in South Korea, or anywhere else.
Don’t call him a stalker, either:
Yie waves off the criticism. “It’s not stalking, it’s following,” he said. “There’s no law against that.”
Read the rest on your own. And while you’re at it, check out Extra! Korea and Kushibo, too.
(HT to reader)
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m glad to see this group is finally getting the publicity they deserve.
Shame on John M. Glionna libeling as “an invective-filled nationalistic campaign against the 20,000 foreign-born English teachers in South Korea” a group which was, in fact, formed in response to website called English Spectrum where Canadian (and, to be fair, some American) English teachers in Korea posted pictures of themselves with half-naked Korean lasses as well as advice on molesting students.
The group’s founder “says he is only attempting to weed out troublemakers who have no business teaching students in South Korea, or anywhere else.” I support him. The scumbags he targets, and I met my share of them in the late ’90s before I became an elitist, should be tarred and feathered and sent out of the country.
Here we go.
Mr. Confucian, even if the English teacher population in Korea had more “troublemakers” than the general population (and evidence points to the exact contrary, but, whatever), how in pluperfect hell does that justify a tactic of randomly following foreigners just to see if they’re breaking laws?
By the way, the “pictures of themselves with half-naked Korean lasses,” that you referenced were pictures of adults doing absolutely nothing even remotely illegal. Perhaps there are some on Korea who believe that having fun with white people should be illegal, but I’m surprised you would count yourself among them.
Recently, an English teacher in Korea was found out to be an actual alleged murderer. The Anti-English Spectrum has been oddly silent on this particular case. Care to guess why?
Mr. Anti-English Spectrum is blaming the wrong people. Korean schools get the quality “teachers” they’re willing to paying for. Why would a qualified, experienced teacher like me put up with 2.2 million, shared housing & minimal benefits when I can do 2x or 3x better elsewhere?
Therefore, at their price point, they get the BA/BS in anything, fresh out of dorm living, zero teaching/methodology training or experience, and – worst of all – hired with far greater weight put on a photo (“oh, handsome teacher!”) than on checking references.
This is not the fault of these “teachers”. It’s the fault of the people hiring them, and their customers.
I better stitch up my mouth on this issue, if i don’t wanna get a nice ban. Let’s just say Koreans are overall very tolerant, in other places…
#2,
Consenting adults argument aside, I’ve seen far racier pictures in advertisements for the ‘sex nights’ events held at Korean nightclubs. Hell, I’ve seen far racier pictures at the Chosun’s website, which is supposedly a conservative newspaper. Clearly, those who were offended by the pictures you mention were so because they showed foreign men with Korean women.
As for the “scumbags”… The biggest scumbag I’ve met in Korea was a hagwon owner. He was an alcoholic. I’ve seen him hit his wife in the face, once. Irony of ironies, he’s now a preacher. I don’t doubt he still hates foreign English teachers.
Mr. Glionna, who is definitely legendary, must have photoshopped out the big “L” on this guy’s forehead in a fit of compassion. And this line says it all: “Yie, who is single and has no children…”
It’s be kind of fun to follow that dude around for a while. “Sorry bro, it’s following, not stalking. There’s no law against that.”
Well you guys seem to forget one thing: IT’S THEIR COUNTRY hence it’s their rules and their customs. If (and this is a big if) Korean culture involves a fair amount of xenophobia or at least skepticism toward foreigners you can take it or leave it, instead of bitching about it all the time.
I lived for 6 years in America, i found there lots of things i didn’t like or seemed downright absurd (i.e. melanine-enhanced cops giving me arrogant attitude, not exactly something that goes down well with an Italian) but guess what ? I never moaned or tried to change the system, what do they say ? America, love it or leave it. Same rule should apply to every other nation.
Living abroad generally means holding 2 buckets at the same time, one progressively gets filled up with gold, the other one with shit. When either gets too heavy it is zeit zu gehen imho
No, it’s not stalking. It’s stalking AND harassment. Methinks that Mr. Yie has too much time on his hands.
gangpehmoderniste– You have some valid points, but I am sure that you didn’t have some nationalistic nitwit tracking you down, and following you just to make sure you aren’t doing anything wrong. Any NORMAL Korean would say that what Mr. Yie does is, at best, creepy.
I wonder a few things– 1.) How many “bad” teachers has he caught? 2.) How long before his blind hatred causes him to snap and do something rash?
3.) If I ever see him, he WILL be reported for stalking.
Oh, and I guess his temp agency isn’t doing too well, if he has enough time to stalk people around Korea.
He looks exactly like I’d imagined he would.
It’s about judgment call. Just as the anti-ESL dude looks like that typical do-gooder happy clappy evangelical Christian with an acoustic guitar (we call them 전도사) in Korea who comes up to you and ask you, “Excuse me but have you got a minute..are you a Christian”, and thinks that they are doing something righteous, there are also typical second/third rate English teachers who think nothing of the typical stupid Korean women who throw themselves at Foreigners that they date and brag about on the internet, at the same time bitching about Korea.
Typical people targeting each other. If you are atypical, good for you, you are out of the loop, and safe. Let there be more.
I don’t see how this behavior differs from a serial rapist or killer stalking his victims. Somebody check his closet, attic, or any other crawl space.
He’s probably checking to see if these teachers have Korean girlfriends.
I have a genius business idea: an Ultimate Fighter type of reality show where 2 teams, one made of wacko holier-than-thou Korean nationalists, the other made of slimey drunk English teachers, square off in MMA bouts.
Inbetween fights each guy gets to talk about his life, so we will likely have the Korean nerd raging over Korean chicks dating white guys and some drunk trailer park reject slurring over the fact Korea is so racist cos they don’t let him go out with 14 years old girls.
The winner gets a night out, dressed in a baby seal costume, with a bunch of Canadian rednecks
You’re implying that this man and/or this group’s behavior is somehow representative of Korea as a whole, which it isn’t. The man and his group are one tiny little segment of the Korean population.
I know that there are Neo-Nazis in America, though I haven’t seen them, so if I see a US-immigrant complaining about Neo-Nazis in America should I tell him, “IT’S OUR COUNTRY AND OUR CUSTOMS”? That’s exactly what you are doing. Projecting one small group on to the nation as a whole.
US immigrants hardly ever complain about skinheads thank you very much. At least not the 1st generation.
Touché…well i strongly believe that nationalists and xenophobes, despite all their shortcomings, are the last defenders of national identities and values in a shitty, soulless, mediocre, ultimately doomed globalised world
AC,
The only difference is that he doesn’t rape those he stalks…
skinheads are pathetic shit…good at ambushing people 10 vs 1 also most of them are fa..gay
Well, everone needs a hobby, I guess, but I actually think Yie Eun-woong is on to something. I mean, does anyone really think that a county like Korea could see a huge influx of often unqualified foreign pervs, er, English teachers and NOT experience some kind of backlash? Christ, the only thing I’m surprised about is that there’s not more of this kind of blowback going on.
If the guy were in America, he’d be a minuteman patrolling the Arizona boarder in a pickup truck and carrying a shotgun. This guy is harmless. I say give him a reality TV show and put him on MTV-Korea!
DLB
Replace skinheads with Koreans and you’ve just described every Korean vs. waeg fight I’ve seen in Korea. (and to be fair, that describes every Thai vs farang fight I’ve seen too).
Anyway, I think it’s time to get some netizen help. Not all of them like Yie Eunga. Far from it. If they can find and out dog shit girl, they can find and out Yie.
Then WE can “follow” HIM. Following is not illegal, right? For a single man without children and a WHOLE LOT of time on his hands, I’d be curious to see how many hookers he visits, and other illegalities he commits throughout his day of protecting Korean children.
+1 for Yie Eunga.
“+1 for Yie Eunga.”
That reminds me of a time way, way, waaaayyyy back in the day, when I taught a small group of middle school boys who couldn’t stop laughing at a character in their textbook named “Inga”.
Yup, Yie Eunga is quite a winner. What lady wouldn’t be impressed by a guy who spends his evenings peeping at and stalking other guys on dates? Eunga deserves his own foreigner fan club.
I’d like to move away from Mr. Yie’s personal life, which we can speculate to be dismal, and towards his public life, which we know for a fact to be hateful, antagonistic, deceitful, racist, cowardly, and damaging to the reputation of Korea.
#2, WC,
One could probably deploy the same logic you use to argue for the stalking and harassment of the clerics of that atavistic Roman faith you find so appealing due to their penchant for diddling little boys.
@12 Yuna “Typical people targeting each other. If you are atypical, good for you…”
I am concerned that Koreans think poor quality teachers are “typical”, and good quality teachers are “atypical.” I think it’s the opposite.
Most of the foreigners I meet in Korean are good quality.
I’d think the proportion of poor quality foreign teachers would be similar to the proportion of poor quality Korean teachers, and that both are a minority “atypical” group.
@ 21
Speaking of Thai vs Farang last year i was in Pattaya, nope i didn’t go there to get laid, i was there to see some Dutch guy who’s a big name in combat sports, in one of my feeble attempts to build a legitimate business.
Now people may find the idea of hanging out with a kickboxing honcho to gain respectability a bit strange but that’s beyond the point, one night we were hanging out on the seashore (i forgot the name of the street, it’s the one with the Hard Rock cafe) and all of a sudden while we were crossing one of the dimly lit alleys this little gang of Thai youth, they looked around 18-20 years old, approached us to rob us and possibly kick our ass. Thanks God the Dutch dude, on top of being an imposing mofo also spoke decent Thai so he kinda distracted them for a couple of minutes chit-chatting.
The apex of hilarity was reached when the chief of the gang, a kid who’s apparently the son of some small local contractor, in order to impress us and get the due respect took out from the back of his designer jeans something that looked like a 200 years old gun.
I swear the God the thing looked like one of those ancient fake guns you see in phoney Renaissance museums in little Italian towns or alternatively in an old Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge story…needless to say the whole sad affair was descending into a total pharce but we couldn’t laugh cos likely that would have pissed off the bangers.
Well in another minute he convinced the kids to chill out and we ended up taking them to an Aussie-owned bar for beers, a local Metallica cover band was playing and we had a blast of a night.
Asia for the most part is a really sweet place, it is cos of stuff like that i wanna live there.
Please tell me this means “uppity Negroes”…
gangpeh,
Southeast Asians are some of the most random people you’ll ever meet. I once had a Cambodian acquaintance and some of the things he said and things he did simply didn’t make sense most of the time. In contrast to Southeast Asians, Filipinos are pretty cool and normal.
I should’ve trademarked that term.
about a year ago I was melamine-enhanced.
i will have to pass that information onto Yie. People like you need to be stalked (I mean, followed) , harassed and expelled from Korea!! “외국인 아웃!” …
… no, wait… my apologies… I thought that read “ketamine-enhanced”…
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