Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The Daum signature campaign: 'Let's kick out low quality foreign instructors!'

The 2005 English Spectrum Incident

Part 1: English Spectrum and 'Ask The Playboy'
Part 2: The Kimchiland where it’s easy to sleep with women and make money
Part 3: English Spectrum shuts down as Anti-English Spectrum is created
Part 4: How to hunt foreign women

Part 5: Did the foreigners who denigrated Korean women throw a secret party?
Part 6: The 'Ask The Playboy' sexy costume party
Part 7: Stir over ‘lewd party’ involving foreigners and Korean women
Part 8: The 2003 post that tarred foreign English teachers as child molesters
Part 9: Netizens shocked by foreign instructor site introducing how to harass Korean children        

Part 10: 'Recruit a Yankee strike force!'  
Part 11: The Daum signature campaign: 'Let's kick out low quality foreign instructors!'
Part 12: Movement to expel foreign teachers who denigrated Korean women
Part 13: "Middle school girls will do anything"
Part 14: Netizens propose 'Yankee counter strike force'
Part 15: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 1

Part 16: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 2
Part 17: Web messages draw Koreans’ wrath
Part 18: Thai female laborers and white English instructors
Part 19: KBS Morning Newstime: 'I can also suffer from the two faces of the internet'
Part 20: AES: Grandfather Dangun is wailing in his grave! 
Part 21: 'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors
Part 22: "Korean men have no excuse"
Part 23: "Unfit foreign instructo
rs should be a 'social issue'"
Part 24: Growing dispute over foreign English instructor qualifications
Part 25: 'Clamor'at foreigner English education site
Part 26: Foreign instructor: "I want to apologize"
Part 27: No putting brakes on 'Internet human rights violations'
Part 28: "They branded us as whores, yanggongju and pimps," part 1
Part 29: "They branded us as whores, yanggongju and pimps," part 2
Part 30: Don't Imagine

Part 31: AES founder's statement
Part 32: 'Foreign instructor' takes third place
 
Part 33: Art From Outsider's Point of View
Part 34: U.S. Embassy warns Americans of threats near colleges
Part 35: Internet real name system debated
Part 36: Dirty Korean women who have brought shame to the country?
Part 37: Invasion of Privacy Degrades Korean Women Twice Over
Part 38: 60 unqualified native speaking instructors hired for English instruction
Part 39: The rising tide of unqualified foreign instructors
Part 40: Warrant for Canadian English instructor who molested hagwon owner
 
Part 41: MBC Sisa Magazine 2580: "Korea is a paradise" 
Part 42: Foreign instructor: "In two years I slept with 20 Korean women."
Part 43: Viewers shocked by shameless acts of unqualified foreign instructors.
Part 44: Warrant for the arrest of a man in his 30s for breaking into home of foreign instructors
Part 45: Unqualified English instructors seen as major problem here


Part 11: The Daum signature campaign: 'Let's kick out low quality foreign instructors!'

On the afternoon of January 14, 2005, a signature campaign titled 'Let's kick out low quality foreign instructors!' was posted at Daum Agora. As you can see below, it eventually saw 10,475 signatures posted out of a target of 10,000 between January 14 and February 14.

To the Ministry of Education and English hagwons:
Let's expel low quality foreign instructors!

10,475 signatures out of target of 10,000 (Jan 14 to Feb 14)

Korean women are easy to sleep with and in Korea if you teach English, you can simply and easily earn money? The inculcation of this prejudice is due to the reckless behavior/indiscretions of a small number of students, but fundamentally, the reason they come to Korea to teach English is because we embrace unqualified foreigners who simply speak English.

Recently there was also an incident in which a former hotel doorman who had faked a diploma was hired as a professor and taught classes at Konkuk University, and when it was finally discovered it angered the students. As well, a shameless 'instructor' coolly posted on the internet how to sexually harass Korean children between the ages of 8 and 12.

These people who teach by day and behave indecently with Korean women by night like this, they're free to play, but let's not give them jobs as English instructors anymore!!

Also, there's an article about recruitment of a Yankee strike force. We shouldn't use violence, but let's gather and have a protest!
This post is then followed by the Kukmin Ilbo article titled 'Recruit a Yankee strike force!' posted earlier that day.

A few notes: It's good to know that the inculcation of the 'prejudice' that "Korean women are easy to sleep with" and "behave indecently with" is "due to the reckless behavior/indiscretions of a small number of students." As always, it's the traitorous woman's fault. Also worth noting is that any sex with foreign men is 'indecent,' or so you'd think from reading a lot of the commentary surrounding this incident.

As well, that "shameless 'instructor' [who] coolly posted on the internet how to sexually harass Korean children between the ages of 8 and 12" actually said not to target that particular demographic, but the inability to read should be no barrier to posting a signature campaign at Daum!

The post is followed by 280 comments. An early one reads "Really unbelievable. In their own country they lie around, in our country they take over. Don't forget this incident" There are many others like this; some are critical (commenting, say, on the differences in how Koreans perceive westerners and southeast Asians), others rehash perceptions like the one above, some relate negative stories about foreign instructors that the poster had met, and others are just, well, dumb ("I want to hit them").

At the same time, however, there are also comments critical of the uproar, saying things like "foreigners are not all the same type of people," and how in that commenter's eyes, the Koreans posting on the internet about this incident all seemed the same. 

A series of comments were left early on by 미완성 ['incompleteness']:
- Wow, now I've become aware of this, be careful. It seems like the opinions being posted here now are like a movement encouraging really primitive violence, 'if they're American let's indiscriminately beat them up.' Why during the Asian Cup did Chinese beat up all the Japanese fans and in Korea two years ago during the anti-American demonstrations were Americans beaten in the streets?

- It's really childish. Really childish. Let's talk about a different way than Korean nationalism. In foreign countries, is it good if the locals beat Korean men for dating foreign women? Why are you so childish?

- In the same movement, if, among white people in the neighbourhood [in a foreign country], it leads to a movement to take down Korean men who hang out with white women, what will happen? I'm honestly worried.
One of the interesting things about delving into all of the articles surrounding this incident is seeing just how monolithic the response wasn't. While it did lead to the formation of Anti English Spectrum, there was criticism of this response as well.

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