This Blog

Korea Beat has translated an article originally published in Korean that was quite informative and insightful. Below are the translated contents:

A middle school principal in Chungcheongbuk-do, after being found guilty of molesting a female teacher, was reinstated as principal of the school, which had had to suspend classes, and, after three months, as education researcher. “He conducted his special research without difficulty, and was reinstated when the suspension expired,” was the shocking, clumsy excuse from local authorities. What kind of “special” research can such a person do to become an educator?

Every time I see such a report I can’t help but think bitter memories of my own school days. I had many excellent teachers but there were some awful people who were just called teachers. Back then there was one male teacher who would pat our bottoms and rub our shoulders because we were “cute”. One of my friends was a favorite of his, and he would rub her cheeks and tell her to sit on his lap. When I think of it now I can see it was clearly sexual harassment, and it happened every class hour.

I hated all of those teachers and their classes, but there was really nothing I could do about it, because he was a teacher, so “you can’t step even on his shadow.” Eventually somebody told their parents about it and it became known to the school, but nothing changed. Then he became the principal and continued to teach classes. The only thing that changed was when he felt our bottoms he would say, “oh, are you going to report this, too?”

As I got older I realized how wrong it was and got really angry. If you ask your girlfriends about their experiences in school, you will find that one of them has memories of a “pervert teacher”. But it continues today. Let it slide 100 times, and perhaps the criminal can make a genuine apology, and everything that happened then can be buried. But to make that kind of person into an educator, who has to be a model for and teacher of others, is just against common sense, isn’t it?. The thought that such a light punishment will bring a halt to two years’ worth of sexual molestation is a joke, but I can’t understand why the Chungcheonbuk-do Office of Education decided to smear ink on the faces of its teachers, who ought to be more respectable than anyone. The Office wasted no time attacking a post of mine protesting the teacher’s reinstatement, calling it “defamation”. Our necessary acts are someone’s defamation, apparently.

Frankly, whenever I hear of someone complaining of the drunken, sexual shenanigans of foreign ESL teachers, all I can think of are falling-down drunk businessmen, massage parlors on every corner, and articles like this, and one word comes to my mind: “projection”.

I applaud the writer, Woo Ho-gyeong, for her honesty and courage for posting such a strong article in modern-day South Korea, which is still deeply conservative and sexist beyond it’s thin veneer of liberalism and democracy. Being a foreigner here you often become discouraged by the seemingly constant demonisation and scapegoating us non-Koreans receive in the local press for seemingly any and all social ills which befall the Korean peninsula. I often wish that the locals would just look at the things a little more constructively and not take the bait that the often self-interested, xenophobic and malicious mainstream media in this country continually dishes out. Then, an individual such as Ms. Woo comes along and restores your faith that things will eventually change here and Korea will eventually achieve its full potential.

The truth is that present-day Korean society - like many societies, but we’re talking about Korea here is fundamentally flawed largely due to abuses of power by many/most in positions of authority and power. And, due to a lack of gumption to thoroughly prosecute these wrongdoers due to antiquated Confucian beliefs that these individuals are demi-gods and should be treated as such, and that any publicity will damage the (obviously flawed) institution, place of employment, Government office, etc.

Life continues as usual, smoke and mirrors, appearance over substance, lies over truth. That is of, course, until there’s a convenient scapegoat to be found to take the fall. That way the general public can purge their pent-up frustrations and continue on as usual after a brief release. Meanwhile, the true culprits rise on to even greater heights. I appreciate how this writer realises that foreigners and other individuals of ‘lesser standing’ are often those who are pillorised when caught and/or assumed of committing seemingly regular crimes within Korean society itself (and/or transgressions, as in the case of foreign men having the nerve to hook up with consenting Korean women).

The truth is that in Korea, more often than not, the emperor has no clothes! Everyone knows this but goes out of their way to provide an elaborate charade for themselves and outsiders so the truth is never fully revealed and no face is lost as a result.

I applaud you, Woo Ho-gyeong for your brilliant article. May it be become an impetus for more young Koreans such as yourself to say enough’s enough and it’s time for change whereby all individuals are treated (and punished) equally and whereby the old habits of sweeping crimes under the carpet is no longer tolerated.