I don’t have time to write this up properly, but the old KBS “Hongdae is a Godless Mad-Max Sodom and Gommorah” “investigation”/smear job might have a new topper.
Check out the “English teacher gang rape” that appeared on a comedy channel, at Mongdori.
19/02/2009 at 4:12 pm Permalink
Rob,
Which sex type of foreigner is this going to have the biggest impact on?
A.Male
B. Female
C. Both
D. All of the above
(Answer: I think it is Male)
19/02/2009 at 4:29 pm Permalink
Um, yeah, clearly.
19/02/2009 at 4:48 pm Permalink
That was comedy?
19/02/2009 at 5:21 pm Permalink
Actually, Joy, I’d argue all of the above in your multiple choice question: even if male English teachers are the ones specifically being targeted THIS time, things like this create and/or foster a culture of racism and xenophobic suspicion in which ALL foreign teachers, and eventually all foreigners, or whichever other scapegoat group, are eventually painted with the same brush.
19/02/2009 at 5:41 pm Permalink
It’s just so un-funny as to leave me feeling too apathetic to care. Maybe I should, but I don’t. And as long as a large number of Korean men (certainly not all of them) continue to treat Korean women as poorly as they do, they should expect Korean women (certainly not all of them) to take an interest in foreigner teachers, either for friendship, dating, or something more.
Still interesting though.
19/02/2009 at 7:14 pm Permalink
Here we go again.
I’d like to know how these foreign “actors” can face their friends or look in the mirror after contributing to this farce.
19/02/2009 at 7:30 pm Permalink
True Rob, true~
19/02/2009 at 7:34 pm Permalink
I second RobinInSeoul’s comments, and I repost what I posted at Brian’s site:
What kills me is how many foreigners there are who are so desperate for fame or a buck that they would be willing to do something like this. (The only defense I can think of is that they didn’t know how badly the foreigner-raping-Korea thing was going to be emphasized; the idea that “if I don’t do it, someone else will” is b.s.)
It’s not always people who are living in Korea, though. Sometimes they get these people from talent scouts in the US, Canada, or some other country. But the fact that these guys were speaking some Korean suggests they were local grabs.
And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts some of them were doing this illegally, too. I’d have no sympathy for them if they get fined or deported, like the idiot actor in “The Host” who knew he was violating his visa by not getting the proper paperwork and had been warned about that by a number of people.
19/02/2009 at 7:35 pm Permalink
This is the kind of thing that ATEK should be addressing.
19/02/2009 at 7:41 pm Permalink
I agree that ATEK should be addressing it, and I made similar comments as you, kushibo, last April when Sexy Mong had that show about busitng English teachers raping Korean girls in a night club.
http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2008/04/sexy-mong-battles-interracial.html
Nevermind that the “English teachers” were nearly all Koreans or Eastern Europeans. I couldn’t understand why foreigners would willingly participate in such an ugly show like that. They should be ashamed of themselves. But clearly they aren’t, having done a show like this in the first place.
What limits what we can do is that most if not all foreign English teachers here are not citizens. Most of us aren’t long-term residents, and hell, half of us aren’t even qualified teachers (rather “native speaker assistant teachers”). By contrast, if you had defamatory programs running in the US against, say, Arabs, Chinese, or Koreans, you’d have Arab-AMERICANS, Chinese-AMERICANS, Korean-AMERICANS leading the charge. Here, few would bat an eye because it’s just a few migrant workers upset. As I’ve said time and time and time again, those who aren’t teachers aren’t going to raise any fuss, either. Much easier to complain on a blog than to try and do anything, I suppose.
I do take some comfort in that Sexy Mong and Damage are trashy shows, are meant to be trashy shows, and are trashy shows when dealing with Koreans as well. Nevertheless, regardless of how bad the show is *supposed* to be, or how little it’s taken seriously by the average Korean, these are ugly stereotypes that aren’t any less televised.
19/02/2009 at 9:57 pm Permalink
This IS part of what ATEK will be doing. For example: http://atek.or.kr/index.php/atek-in-the-news/61-press-release-amendment-to-immigration-control-act-jan-5-2009
20/02/2009 at 2:10 am Permalink
Maybe I’m a bit too dense at 7 in the morning, but I don’t see how what you linked to directly addresses the wrongheadedness of this particular program. This particular program, with the frequent repetition of “외국인 강사,” needs to be addressed directly and specifically.
20/02/2009 at 7:20 am Permalink
Pardon my opacity. As in the link I gave, press releases responding to smears on English teachers’ reputations seems to be one of the things ATEK plans to do. Whether they have the time and resources to tackle every trashy TV show on Korean television remains to be seen, but it IS within the realm of possibility.
20/02/2009 at 9:27 am Permalink
This stuff is particularly scary with the world wide economic problems. English teachers don’t get a lot of money here but it’s much more than the average “Kim soju bottle” who is fresh from the army and college and who has been searching for a job for the past six months. I remember riding a bus, one time, and to the right of the bus there was an oil truck, and to the left of the bus there was a liquid hydrogen tanker. Both of the drivers of those trucks seemed to have road rage. Unemployed Koreans plus television shows that say that English teachers are gang rapists. Just one spark and it might be time to break out the candles again.
20/02/2009 at 11:11 am Permalink
3gyupsal, I respect your concerns, but several points should be made. First, English teachers don’t make that much more than the average Korean, and the growing infrequency of stories about yŏng•ŏ kangsa salaries reflects that. Although the K-blogs tend to focus on things related to English teachers, class warfare in Korea is primarily aimed at Korea’s native rich.
Having lived in Korea for most of my life since I was a teenager, this is small potatoes compared to stuff in the past. It’s offensive and I think it can cause individuals to have to try harder to show they’re decent people worthy of trust, but I don’t think that scenario you’re describing is very likely (but neither is it impossible).
This type of show, as others have pointed out, paints Koreans in a bad light as well. It’s a stupid show that does not garner respect, so I don’t think it would be the kernel of candlelight vigils. It does represent an unfortunate meme that casts all “foreigners” in a potentially negative light, though, and that alone is cause for concern and protest.
20/02/2009 at 11:12 am Permalink
Pardon my opacity. As in the link I gave, press releases responding to smears on English teachers’ reputations seems to be one of the things ATEK plans to do. Whether they have the time and resources to tackle every trashy TV show on Korean television remains to be seen, but it IS within the realm of possibility.
You have to choose your battles, but this one is a big one. I think a carefully worded press release, like that of the JACL regarding the Miley Cyrus “chink eyes” photo, is in order. Along with a goal of an apology by the producers.
20/02/2009 at 11:52 am Permalink
It may be a moot point. From their message boards:
안녕하세요? [코미디TV]입니다.
‘신해철의데미지’는 12월 27일 37회를 마지막회로 종영되었습니다.
감사합니다.
> 데미지 끝인가요?
> 왜 다시보기 안올라와요?
20/02/2009 at 2:00 pm Permalink
‘신해철의데미지’는 12월 27일 37회를 마지막회로 종영되었습니다.
So what? The cable network they’re on should still provide an apology. That should be publicly demanded and publicly offered. There needs to be a lesson for media entities.
20/02/2009 at 8:04 pm Permalink
It’s starting to look like a lot of lessons are needed here in Korea for the next ten years Kushibo. For media, government, the average joe on the street.
20/02/2009 at 8:05 pm Permalink
Sorry, I totally screwed that comment up. Moderators, please delete. I accidentally wrote Kushibo in the name slot. Totally my bad!
22/02/2009 at 8:46 pm Permalink
I showed this show to my girlfriend who is Korean and she said that from the way the girl behaved Koreans would think she was just as at fault for being an ‘easy’ girl and inviting the situation. As Brian said there is some comfort in that these shows treat Koreans in the same way but it’s just when the all-encompassing label of ‘foreigner’ is dragged out to account for the rest of the world that isn’t Korean that is.
Koreans have a tendency to see people in terms of homogeneous groups – foreigners, teachers, politicians – and think of them as sharing fundamental characteristics. This black and white thinking is what makes shows like this especially damaging to us, who may not be Hongdae club-going playboys but still get seen as such.
A more appropriate label would have been ‘men’ rather than ‘foreign men’, but that show would never get made in this male-dominated society.
25/02/2009 at 7:22 pm Permalink
Matt at Popular Gusts has a good post about the tv show, as well as other incidences of scapegoating English teachers.
http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2009/02/lets-not-forget-grudge-over-hongdae.html