Category: Ex-pat Files

I can still remember the good old days when GI’s would try to disguise their appearance as an English teacher in Itaewon to avoid curfew, well now the English teachers may need to start disguising their appearance as GIs:

Nearly 50 English teachers from Canada have been detained, deported or investigated on allegations of visa fraud in South Korea, a country seeking to purge itself of young Westerners increasingly regarded as unqualified, unruly and unwelcome. Long a magnet for foreigners drawn to working overseas, Korea has arrested hundreds of them in the past couple of weeks. Immigration officials have been rounding up dozens of teachers at their homes, work, or at the airports. While as many as 10,000 foreigners legally teach the language at private English schools in Korea, the nation’s media have been full of exposes about teachers with dubious credentials. Many of the foreign teachers, if not most, are Canadian.

Is this crack down bad enough to describe it like this?

Like many Canadians interviewed, he said that Koreans have an innate xenophobia that has hardened of late. “There has been a definite change in the way we’re being perceived in the last nine or 10 months,” he said. “Before, it was, ‘Please speak me English.’ Now, it’s ‘Get out of my country, white devils.’ ” (…) “People basically think all foreign teachers are drunks and molesters who can’t get a job back home,” said the teacher who helps run the Internet board for expats.

This article makes it sound like there is a Korean gestapo on the loose trying to put English teachers into reeducation camps. In the spirit of international cooperation I offer my advice to the fugitive English teachers on how to blend in as an American soldiers to avoid the Korean gestapo that this article leads one to believe is rampaging through this country.

First of all, the long hair has got to go. Shave your hair high and tight. Then you need to start wearing some Fubu clothing preferably very baggy. If you don’t like Fubu than you can always a Nascar jacket. Both are dead give aways for GIs. Then buy a big black backpack to carry around with you. Since the vast majority of GIs cannot drive cars here we rely on these big black bags to carry things in when we go out. The black backpacks are probably the most notable feature of US GIs.

Also travel in groups since GIs tend to travel in groups due to the battle buddy policy. Plus whatever you do don’t stay out pass midnight when the USFK curfew takes effect. You won’t stand a chance of avoiding the gestapo then. You also need to sun tan with a beret on to get that tan line on your head that only a beret can give you. Finally to top off the image and really fool the gestapo wear one of those knock off Yankees ball caps they sell in all the villes. The Gestapo would never think that a Canadian would be caught dead wearing a Yankees ball cap. That would really fool them.

With these few simple tips, you should be able to avoid the Korean gestapo and buy enough time to make your escape from the country. That is if it is really that bad to begin with.

Hat Tip: Japundit

My prior posting about the Daniel Hong article has caused some interesting debate across the Korean blogosphere. Make sure to check out The Marmot’s comments section on this issue and also Jodi from the Asia Pages provides her views on this issue. Finally, Plunge provides a link to a funny sight dedicated to bitter Asian men worth checking out.

Here is a few of the things that have been learned. We have learned that Daniel Hong is not only a racist but is also a plagiarist. He directly took paragraph six of his article from this LA Times review of Ms. Prasso’s book. Also Mr. Hong apparently worked for the Korea Times for awhile before moving to Seattle for whatever reason. We have also learned that there are many other Daniel Hong’s out there with an axe to grind against western men dating their women. I just love the fact how some of these anti-western man commenters act like they own their Asian women like a piece of property. I personally am not offended if an American woman dates an Asian man, black man, hispanic man, or someone with poka dots. I really don’t care. It is their personal decision to date whom ever the choose. So Mr. Hong if you get a date with an American woman I’m not going to call you someone at the bottom of the food chain. I’ll wish you good luck and hope it works out.

Anyway definitely check out the different comments sections for some interesting debate but I stand by my reasoning that if you are an Asian male that is so offended by Asian women dating western men then that is saying more about you then it does about me.

The Korea Times this weekend had this editorial from a Daniel Hong about the relationships between Western men and Asian women. It seems like the Korean newspapers just can’t get enough about talking about relationships between Western men and Asian women as is evident by the amount of articles that have been published on this subject. Anyway this particular article I find quite offensive. Here is just the start to it:

I had never paid attention to the arrangement of the evening news anchors, a young Korean woman paired off with an old white man, at my local TV channel in Seattle until I heard Sheridan Prasso’s lecture at the University of Washington the other day. “Have you seen an Asian man teamed with a white woman on the news?” she prodded. Prasso, a former Business Week Asia editor, in her new book, “The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls & Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient,” asserted that the Westerners’ misconstrued perception of Asian women made it impossible to create the odd pair.

Ms. Sheridan is alledging that Asian women cannot be put on TV and deliver news to the public due to stereotypes about them. Ms. Sheridan must not get out much from her liberal paradise of the University of Washington because growing up in Colorado and watching the Denver Channel 9 News, the news station has a Asian female news anchor Adele Arakawa who is originally from Hawaii but her grandparents imigrated to Hawaii from Okinawa, Japan. This news station didn’t have any problems having an Asian woman anchoring the news. In fact the news station had two more Asian female reporters, one Quynh Nguyen of Vietnamese family origins and Jinah Kim who is originally from Seoul, Korea.

 Obviously this stereotype isn’t very strong in my conservative state of Colorado if we got all these Asian women all over our television screens giving us the news. So how is this stereotype alive and well according to Ms. Sheridan in her People’s Republic of Washington? I thought liberals were all fair and open minded? Seems like an Asian women delivering the news in Washington shouldn’t be a problem especially with such a high Asian population; unless it’s the liberals that are the one’s that believe the stereotypes. So how did three Asian women get hired in Colorado with a very small Asian population? This may be a shock to some kooks out there but maybe they were hired because they are really good news reporters and the stereotype of submissive Asian women didn’t play into the decision to hire them. In fact Adele Arakawa is a highly respected and recognized news anchor:

Adele has received 5 regional emmys in the Heartland Region NATAS awards, including 3 for best anchor. In 1997, the emmy was awarded for coverage of the Oklahoma City Bombing. In 1999, the recognition came for coverage of the Columbine shootings. And in 2004, the Best Anchor award was based on a compilation of the year’s work. She has also received a national 1st place award in 1991 for reporting from the Asian American Journalists Association. The report was a 3-part series on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Adele has received numerous other awards from both community and professional organizations.

Adele served as president of the Chicago chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association in 1992. She is a member of the Japanese American Citizens League, the Japanese American Service Committee and the Japan America Society of Colorado.

I have disproved Ms. Sheridan’s theory in 10 minutes of typing. I’m sure there are more Asian women out there on TV reporting the news. Just off the top of my head I see Michelle Malkin on the news all the time. I wonder how much money the university payed her to teach these false allegations to the student at the University of Washington? Our tax dollars at work.

Now that I have proven Asian females can work in the news industry lets move on to other allegations from Ms. Sheridan:

Still on the streets in Bangkok, as she witnesses numerous Asian women escorting Western men with bald heads and pot bellies, she couldn’t help but think, “What are they thinking? What does she want for dating the paunchy middle-aged man?” She believes that the Western man exploited the Asian woman, and vice versa: the Asian woman out of her need for money and Western man out of his sexual desire. Not only from the street but also from the growth in demand for mail order brides from Asian countries testifies to the exploitation, she laments.

It is true the sex industry in the country of Thailand is out of control but that is because of the poverty there. It is the same thing in the Phillipines and was once the case here in Korea. However, it is not strictly an Asian phenomenom. She needs to go to Eastern Europe and see all the exploited women there. Same thing in Africa. The bottom line is that where there is poverty there will be those who will exploit it in the sex industry be it Asia, Africa, or Europe. Also keep in mind that it works the other way around to. I can’t count the number of GI’s in Dongducheon I have seen wiped out by Phillipino and Russian “drinky girls.” These “drinky girls” must not have gotten the memo that they are supposed to be submissive and obey all commands from the Western man.

Here is what will really piss a lot people off:

Later in the discussion session after her lecture, I raised several questions: “Who are those Western men or Americans chasing after Asian females? Aren’t they what the Southern Californians would call, UCLA (Ugly Caucasians Living with Asians)? Aren’t they at the bottom of the Darwin’s food chain that they couldn’t get what they want in their own land because of their low social status and therefore only option left for them is to chase after those Asians? I know, without any empirical data, it’ll be difficult to press the argument” Prasso admitted that it is true partially and added, “Just street wisdom will give us a telling insight. In England where I used to live, they say that if you can’t make it here, that is, to find your girlfriend, go to Hong Kong.”

I don’t know where to begin on this one? But let me just sum it up this way; this may be a shock to these people but maybe the Western men that marry Asian women simply love their wives for who they are and did not marry them because they are alledgedly submissive and exotic.

Anyway, I’m assuming the writer Daniel Hong is Korean because of his last name, but he is clearly a racist, along with Ms. Sheridan, and by association the Korea Times for allowing such a piece of trash as this article to be published. I find it interesting that a Korean man and a so called open minded liberal are the ones passing along and reinforcing the negative stereotypes about Asian women. In their effort to defend Asian women these people have actually only furthered harmed their image and have shown that they are the real racists not Western men. What is really sad is that they probably don’t even know it.

If you haven’t heard about the English Spectrum-gate scandal head over to to Marmot for all the latest updates. However, I can’t help but think this thing is getting way over blown. Now even the Korea Times is getting in on the Spectrum-gate scandal with this article by Mike Weisbart.

Koreans have never liked the Hermit Kingdom moniker. Especially in this epoch of globalization, they want to be seen as open and worldly, with emphasis on `open’ in particular, given their eagerness to showcase for the world their amazing successes and, in no small measure, counteract their infamous inferiority complex by proving to themselves that they finally have arrived.

True, there is so much to admire. Indeed, much to be jealous of. But you really have to wonder sometimes if Koreans are ready for the Big Stage. A couple of ugly incidents in the past few days might shake your faith.

The first takes the form of a diplomatic dispute between China and Korea playing out at the government level. The second is taking place much closer to the ground via an Internet campaign by those oft-talked-about Korean netizens, some of whom have called on their members to assault foreigners at popular night spots like Hongik University and the Sinchon area.

Sounds bizarre, doesn’t it? The problem got its start on a discussion board at a website catering to English teachers living and working here in Korea. Aside from providing info on job opportunities and Korean culture and travel, the website also operates discussion boards where people can discuss issues and, as is often the case, vent frustrations about their experiences in Korea.

Most of the talk is just innocuous griping and or uninformed Korea bashing. But in this case, some Korean netizens latched on to a particularly infantile posting by one foreigner who extolled the virtues of Korea by arguing how easy it is to have sex with Korean women. It didn’t take long for the conversation thread to be noticed by netizens. Angered by the perceived slight to the honor of their women, they inundated the English website and put it out of commission.

But they didn’t stop there. Soon, discussion boards at popular portal sites were being filled with talk about the incident. One board I read was bursting with comments like “let’s punish the foreign assholes,” followed by calls to beat up foreigners seen walking around holding hands with Korean women. And because everyone knows that foreigners all hang out in bars at Hong-dae and Sinchon, people were told to gather there and watch for offending waygook-in.

One fringe Korean news site went so far as to put up a grainy photo showing one of the many smoky night clubs where Koreans and foreigners often mix on the dance floor. Young Korean women figure prominently in the foreground so one can only surmise that this was supposed to enrage the already lathered-up netizens even more.

Now, the campaign has somehow morphed into a drive to force out all the unqualified English teachers. Note how the inferiority has turned to superiority.

Weisbart concludes the article with this:

It seems that Koreans employ a double standard when it comes to how foreigners are expected to behave here and how they themselves are allowed to act outside the country. The incident in China shows a startling lack of sensitivity and, given the Chinese claims that the lawmakers had held an illegal press conference, Koreans should consider themselves lucky their representatives weren’t detained.

As I write this, there is thankfully no news that any foreigners were attacked on Saturday night. We’ll have to wait and see how much damage the incident in China causes to ROK-Sino relations. However they pan out, both situations raise awkward questions about the true nature of Korean feelings toward non-Koreans and whether Koreans will ever learn how to relate with others.

Well said and hopefully this whole stupid incident will just go away. However, I do love this quote from the Marmot.

You know, if I were a GI, I might be enjoying this all. God knows I’ve heard and read enough bitching from English teachers about how the military types make them look bad. Well, 8th Army personnel, here’s your chance for a little payback. Next time you see an English teacher, tell him you were thinking of growing your hair long, but you didn’t want Koreans to confuse you for being a hagwon instructor.

Yes I have heard plenty of English teachers bitch about GI’s and so it is ironic that they get stuck with this. If any English teachers out there need some high and tights to blend in with other GI’s now, I can hook them up. My wife can cut your hair for cheap. Plus I can give you tips about blending in as a GI in Korea.